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 Posted: Thu May 29, 2025 1:18 pm
(Backdated to 5/18/2025)
Yasmeen fairly buzzed with excitement. After planning and discussion, today was the first day she was visiting her homeworld. Keesh had taken her shopping for some basic camping supplies the day before. Nothing complex, a sleeping bag, blanket, pillow, and simple tent, plus some supplies for art and note-taking. Admittedly, she'd leaned heavier on the art supplies, but that had been her decision. Keesh had volunteered to be the one to go with her younger cousin, on account of Khaz having a date. Keesh had refused to share details about Khaz's date, beyond a gender, but she seemed very happy for Khaz, which was good enough for Yasmeen.
And, honestly, Khaz could use the promise of a little happily ever after, even if it didn't work out. Khaz spent a lot of time on others and hiding his true self, whatever that entailed, and he needed some happiness without anxiety.
The plan was to leave once her mother had left for work at the library and Keesh arrived. Khaz was going on his date later in the day, after they left. Keesh would help Yasmeen establish a base camp with a good amount of water and non-perishable food, and then...then....
They'd be free to explore until they had to return for dinner.
Yasmeen had no idea what Aquitania was like. Khaz thought it might be like medieval Europe, cooler than Virginia. He also said that it probably wasn't in good condition, so buildings might be unstable, overgrown, or any number of other things. He thought it was possible to aim a little bit, based on thought, and had suggested thinking of castles. Toward that end, Yasmeen had gone to the library to borrow some books about castles.
Which, it turned out, were rarely as romantic as she'd imagined, being stationary engines of war build more for defense than comfort. Drafty, spartan, and poorly lit seemed to be the norm, outside of palaces. Considering her sphere as the Senshi of Courage, the idea of a warlike society in a world filled with castles fit really well. Privately, though, she hoped not all the castles were that bleak.
There was a knock at the door, and her mom popped her head in. "I'm getting groceries on the way back from the library; do you need anything?"
"Nope, I'm good, Mom," she chirped, hurrying over to give her mother a bear hug. Thuraya already had her hair pinned in a bun under a loosely draped scarf in a pretty floral print.
Her mother returned the hug with a smile. "Okay. As usual, you be good to Khaz, no watching or reading anything you'd be embarrassed to talk to me about later, and try not to ruin your appetite before dinner, okay?"
"You got it, Mom!"
"All right, have a good day, if you need anything, call your Uncle Tyriq!" she said, giving her a quick hug and hurrying downstairs. Yasmeen heard her mother's car leave the driveway a few minutes later.
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2025 1:28 pm
Yasmeen had finished doing up her hair and was trying to figure out what to wear when Keesh arrived. On some level, Yasmeen figured she'd be wearing her senshi fuku, but when she Powered down, she'd need to wear something reasonable. Also, when they got back for dinner, they'd need to be wearing something reasonable for the Virginia weather. Just to avoid awkward questions from her mother.
Keesh poked her head in. "You...are not ready to go, are you?" she asked with a smile, leaning against the door frame and casually folding her arms. "Need any help?"
"Keesh! Yes, please! Today's probably going to be really warm here, but we don't know what it's going to be like on Aquitania!"
"Hmmm. You could wear a sundress over a shirt and leggings, with socks, shoes, and a jacket. It would be dorky until we got back, but, if senshi are supposed to be born on their homeworld, and you were born on Earth, I think it's safe to assume there's going to be no one there who will be able to judge you."
Yasmeen nodded, quickly selecting clothes and changing into them. Keesh stepped out of the room for a few minutes, closing the door behind her and stepping down the hall to let Khaz know they were heading up in a few minutes. It was a little strange, really, she thought as she tugged her hair free from her coat. Using magic to go deeper into space than astronauts went, in fractions of a second, to asteroids and stars and planets that looked nothing like what decades of scientists and science fiction stories had said other celestial bodies in their solar system would look like.
Keesh knocked. "You ready to go now?" she asked.
"Yep!" Yasmeen called back, bending down to tie her shoes. Digging her henshin pen and senshi phone out of subspace, she transformed as Keesh reentered, smoothing her skirts with one hand. The chibi reached out her hand for Keesh, who already held the bundle of camping supplies, and began thinking of castles. She was the senshi, right? So she would have her own castle, right? Fixing that thought in her mind as Keesh's free hand closed around hers, Chibi Sailor Aquitania said, "Next stop, Aquitania," as she pressed the homeworld app. Light suffused the girls, obscuring the world they knew from view.
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2025 1:40 pm
The world that appeared as the light faded was distinctly different. Stone walls and floor, with the rotted remains of a timber ceiling, beautifully carved windows with only the shattered remains of subtly tinted glass windows, a few of their shards lying on the floor, with vines creeping through the windows. Rotting furniture and furnishings suggested a cozy, well-appointed bedroom with adjoining chambers. Outside the window, a soft, cool rain fell, doing little to illuminate the chamber, but mostly serving to highlight the desolate nature of the castle. Letting go of Keesh's hand, she made her way over to one of the windows to look outside, stepping carefully to avoid the glass.
Wild roses and brambles scaled the walls of a broad tower adjoining a long hall on the edge of a gracious courtyard overgrown with wildflowers. Tiny fruits were forming on the bramble canes, still very green. What banners must have hung or flown from the towers and ramparts were virtually gone, leaving little indication of an owner. Underneath the rain was an odd quiet that Aquitania couldn't quite grasp.
"The birds and the bugs," Keesh said quietly, coming to stand by her cousin. "Everything's green and growing, but I can't see or hear any animals. How is anything growing here?"
The chibi blinked with slowly dawning horror. No animals. No people. Just plants and castles and whatever other ephemera of life had been left behind. Khaz had said their homeworlds were dead, after a fashion. He hadn't clarified they were functionally planet-sized ghost towns.
Keesh placed a hand on Aquitania's shoulders. "Let's go look for a place to set up your base camp, shall we?"
Still shaken, her younger cousin nodded, turning away from the window to reexamine the room. One wall was occupied by a grand, soot-stained fireplace carved with a pattern of lions and briars; the center of the mantel portrayed a shield bearing a roaring lion's head. Blinking owlishly, she tried to figure out where she'd seen that symbol before, as Keesh inhaled sharply.
"Can you take a look at your brooch?" the older girl asked tightly. "I think...I think this was your room in your castle."
Blinking, Yasmeen looked down at the shield-shaped brooch, tugging it around to take a better look at it. Sure enough, it matched the one on the mantelpiece--
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2025 1:57 pm
A crackling fire was on the hearth, and the room swam to life with color. Tapestries covered the walls, Uranian carpets covered the floor, while a great four-poster bed stood against the wall. Embroidered pillows and cushions created a cozy nook at the window. Other furnishings filled the room, but she took little note of them as she flung open the doors of a beautifully carved applewood wardrobe and dug through the gowns for her Lunar court gowns, as well as a few gowns suitable for wear on Earth. She had completed her duties in this benighted castle, no one really needed her to oversee jousts or win wars these days. No, she'd spend her time in fairer company on Earth, or on Earth's Moon, where she would be naught but a mysterious, pretty, fair maid--
Aquitania recoiled from the memory in mild horror. Was that...her past life? A bored girl who had run away the minute she thought she wasn't needed, uninterested in her duties, preferring to be a pampered princess?
She looked around more thoughtfully. Well, this place was her past self's loss. Seen in the memory, it was a beautiful room, comfortable, too. It wasn't that way now, but it could be again. She smiled.
The furniture was probably unfit to be used, and sleeping in this room until then would be creepy, though the fireplace looked promising. At a later date. Aquitania made her way to the doors, opening each in turn.
One opened on the landing of a steep, worn spiral staircase. Which looked rather treacherous, and the old, thick rope wrapped around the central column looked unreliable.
The other door led to a solar, equally beautiful and well-lit as the bedroom, with its own fireplace and applewood wardrobe, in addition to a matching table and chairs for two. The furnishings and decorations were similarly pretty much unusable, but there was a large, open space at one end suitable to pitch her small tent.
"Let's set it up in here," Aquitania called to her cousin, stepping further inside and running her hands over the dusty stonework. The decorations on the mantelpiece in the solar matched the mantelpiece in the bedroom, and the two applewood wardrobes matched, too. Based on what she'd read about castles, a wardrobe in the solar was likely unusual. Curious, the chibi tried the handle, only to find it stuck fast, locked or rusted, if the presence of a keyhole was anything to go by.
"Yasmeen? Wanna help me with the camping gear?" Keesh asked, making her way toward the empty space. Aquitania blinked, noticing that Keesh had already moved the debris to make space for everything.
"Yeah, just a sec," she replied, Powering down before coming to help her older cousin, breaking the bundle down as they went. Tent first, then a mat to provide padding between her and the stone floor, then the sleeping bag, pillow, and blanket. Working together, they had the camp set up within about half an hour, leaving them a few hours to explore the castle and its grounds.
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Posted: Thu May 29, 2025 2:25 pm
The castle, as it turned out, was a very solidly built structure, comprised of an elegant, gracious palace surrounded by outbuildings and two heavily fortified curtain walls with misaligned gates, all perched on a large outcropping of rock, sandwiched between a dense forest and the roaring sea. Barracks, stables, mews, a pair of forges...it looked like the center of a great kingdom. Or, at least, it had the pretentions of a great kingdom.
The chapel, however, bore few indications of any particular religion. Sure, it was a beautiful gothic structure, but symbolism seemed to mingle lions and shields and briars and stars. Either Aquitanians had little interest in religion, or there was little of the religion left to parse.
The Great Hall turned out to be utterly enormous, perhaps large enough to host an indoor jousting tournament, lined with galleries above and fireplaces set into columned alcoves below. Broken stained glass windows high in the walls shone candy-colored light on the stone floor. A low dais completed the floor plan, with a vaulted ceiling forming floral shapes above. Behind the dais and on columns hung the remains of banners, and a line of carvings aligned with the base of the galleries portrayed shields graven with different devices, captured and chained together by twining briars.
Even Keesh's eyes went wide at the elaborate nature of the Great Hall, particularly as compared to other structures. "I think it's safe to say this was the center of your kingdom," Keesh murmured quietly.
Yasmeen nodded as she heard and felt a buzzing go off. Pulling her normal phone out of her pocket, she blinked at the time. Her mother would be home soon. "Keesh, I think it's time to go," she said regretfully, reaching for her cousin's hand.
Keesh nodded, clasping Yasmeen's hand.
Yasmeen put her normal phone away and pulled out her senshi phone. Thinking of home and tapping the app, light suffused them once again, depositing them in Yasmeen's bedroom, with enough time to get changed for the decidedly warmer Virginia weather.
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