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Encke, when he was younger, had a tendency of chronically running late. It was never anything personal! Time just had a tendency of absolutely running away from him, and by the time he rediscovered it, whatever meeting he needed to keep had slipped through his fingers. Management had gotten slightly better when he had a lot of his life managed for him by Richard, and then Richard's parents, and then once he had gotten himself back to school, and then with directors and with agents and--

And now? Well, being on time was something Encke had almost gotten good at by force. Sometimes, Encke would remind himself that he needed to be somewhere multiple times before going to sleep so he would just wake up at the right time. Other times, they set their alarms in quadruplicate until they were certain it would actually work. So today, fortunately, they were early.

And earlier than their guest, even!

It gave Encke time to read over some script edits, if anything.

The phone he was reading the edits on was vanished into subspace as he heard the ring of Joy's voice in the air. "Good news! You didn't miss anything!" He shifted where he was standing to more fully face where she was coming toward him, offering a charismatic grin in turn that buried down the other pieces of life he was busy ignoring. "I've just been reading some changes to a script-"

They were minor things, overall. Did it really matter if he said s**t or damn? ... Well, ratings, but beside for that-

"Do you get seasick? Just out of curiosity."

Encke didn't exactly miss the curious look, and considering he could trust that no one was listening in--unless there was quite some aura suppression, but he wouldn't lose too much sleep over there--they offered, cheerfully, "Actor as a civilian. Going over some changes they made to a script I'm learning. Seems to be mostly so we can clock a PG-13 rating and not an R one."

They rolled their eyes. It was fairly clear what Encke thought of the rating system. Honestly, it was unrealistic bullshit. Most of the Gen Alpha kids he saw come through Raina's cafe were already swearing up a storm. Unless they were part of that puritanical nonsense-

Regardless.

"But perhaps." Encke laughed. "Not that I'm offering four drinks and I hope I'm not unappealing company but-- Do you need some? I have some in my subspace. But I'm not in water," there actually wasn't too much surface water on the comet, "but looking up can be ... Disorienting. On Earth, can't interpret we're barrelling through space. Encke's Comet has to clear a lot of space in a little over three years and you can tell."

Encke hardly could at this point, but the first time he went to his comet, he definitely spent several minutes staring up in wonder and then several more stumbling over his own feet.

The concept of her not taking her eyes away from the ground drew a small snort of a laugh from Encke. It didn't quite seem to be in character for her, at least. Maybe necessary, but-- "There may be some interesting things on the ground, at least. A lot of Enckean creatures have started to return."

They shrugged as they reached out to her hand.

"The world is starting to survive without me."

Starting would have been an understatement, and perhaps that would be obvious as they vanished into another world, with the promised obvious movement of the stars partially obscured by the lightning flying from coil to coil. Nothing about where they landed was in any was obviously lush in the way that Joy's wonder was, paths built out of stone and cobble, but there was something alive here.

With or without Encke.

The walls of the buildings themselves seemed alive with the way the luminescent paints brought light to a world otherwise dark. "Well, here's Encke's Comet." Their greeting seemed almost casual for what they were looking at. He let go of Joy's hand and bent down to pet a small glowing kitten that had trotted up to them on arrival. "Home of the Enckeans in one life."

Encke snorted aloud at the concept of drugs and bright lights as the atmosphere of his homeworld. There was something strangely alight about everything his homeworld had, there was no denying that. And yet, after years of memories of a place that wasn't quite the same as that, it was a fun image but also a bit of a record scratch. He could picture those kinds of parties perhaps maybe at the nights at the fountain, but just as a standard entrance, perhaps not.

And yet, something about the dress of the people on his homeworld could echo back to the kind of bright things that could be seen at raves and parties. Not always, but it was something about the bioluminescence of a lot of their fabrics that echoed to exactly that.

"Honestly," he snorted, "you'd probably fit right in, aesthetics-wise."

The kitten was not the only one that trotted up to them. It seemed they were part of a clouder, and a couple of others that were less brave followed. It gave Encke a chance to squat down and make little noises to the kittens as he thought about the surprisingly blunt question he was asked.

The answer he came to surprised him in its own honesty.

"For me? No." Encke's chuckle was wry and quiet. "I can see why it would be hard for some. Perhaps it should have been harder for me than it was, but I don't think it had a chance to be." Casually, Encke picked up one of the kittens. They squirmed, at first, but when Encke pet them, they calmed. It was a fidget that helped him, too.

It distracted him from the green he saw on his hands.

"Sixteen years ago, when I became aware of this s**t," he sucked on his bottom lip for a moment, popped his lips, and kept going, "the Negaverse did something heinous to me and several others. Shocking I'm alive because I shouldn't be."

Should have been evaporated. Should have been sucked deeper. Should have been looping endlessly, dying and dying again.

"Getting away from Earth probably helped save my life. Ignoring the Transcendence, which helps keep the Negaverse out of my chest," he snorted, "even before that, while Arra--ah, my husband, Basiluzzo--and his family helped me from a more external therapeutic earth-based perspective, which I desperately needed, I'm getting away from Earth helped me get away from the images in my mind."

A blunt question deserved a frank answer.

"So not really. I've also seen so many memories of who I was before, that in some ways I do identify as being Enckean... Even if I don't think I will ever be physically, all things considered."

Petting insistent kittens was a nice contrast to the seriousness of the topic. Calling the Cauldron, or Cosmos, a god, felt apt. They had control of the lives of the universe, after all, and monitored an unseen cycle that led to people being born again and again, even as different people in different realities hundreds of years later.

"Maybe it does," noted Encke, appreciating the implication that perhaps they were one of the ones who could. And maybe there was something to that.

They'd been at this for a terribly long time.

"But I feel like being something that powerful would give you a bit of a detachment from mortals, eh?"

They kept quiet as Joy fell through what she was also talking and thinking about. There was a lot to think about when dealing with the dead, and dead societies, and dead planets. Or... At least formerly dead ones, noted Encke, as he spotted another unrecognized animal at a distance. They'd explore that later. The kittens surrounding them were comforting.

"Remembering an entire other life can be rather heavy. I have a feeling I'm right at the edge of discovering some heavier stuff," like perhaps why there wasn't a singular dead body on the comet, "but honestly, dealing with dead people likely has it's own heaviness. I've heard some about it from Stromboli -- my father-in-law. And Pendour, my best friend. Who I've met the ancestor of."

Irving was ... A trip.

They kissed the kitten on the head before letting them down. They stayed in Encke's lap.

"Honestly," his voice was wry, and his gaze was elsewhere, "you've been talking to a dead person."

It was definitely a change in the usual he expected from Joy, especially considering their prior conversations, but perhaps everything had been a bit different than the normal. They were getting philosophical while petting space cats on a comet, talking about death and new life and ghosts and whatever the hell cosmos actually was.

Seriously, had she ascended beyond being a senshi? Had she ever been one?

Encke snorted. It was a fair question, and the results she came up with were all, to some degree, correct. One hand went around the other to wring it dry before he caught himself and changed his attention back to petting the kitten in his lap instead. (The kitten, of course, preferred this route.)

"I do feel like I'm King Ignatius once more to some degree," there was a small laugh that followed that. "Minus the societal power that came with that, I suppose. I feel a lot of what they felt, I can sometimes see who she saw on the lands as I look around, I can even read what he read. It's a bit odd, sometimes, walking around remembering a different era."

When the kitten meowed at him, he looked down, smiled, and scratched at its chin. "But there's also elements of it that're more literal. I did die." Couldn't see beyond the water in his eyes. Wanted to shout and rail against it. Couldn't beyond a time. Couldn't stand. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't-- "Got stuck in a box and gassed out. Brought back as something other. Lucky to be brought back into humanity by the Zodiac Court."

Encke took a deep breath.

Perhaps it was okay to be honest about it. Perhaps there was an element of it that was necessary.

"You could add me to the roster if you want. Just for a laugh."

Encke liked the concept of being a rare collectible. He had some experience with that, considering the fact that people sought out his signature now, but it also implied that what happened to him wasn't common.

Good. He wouldn't wish the PTSD on anyone, really.

"I guess it's unusual to die and be aware of the other side, whether it be what happened to me, what happened to some people after that Dark Star Herald bullshit, what happened to the ghosts on a lot of wonders," Encke could understand it being weird, because honestly, it was weird. Death was something they were always taught was final. It had an end that couldn't be avoided. Everyone was mortal.

Until, somehow, they weren't.

Their smile to her in return was wry. "It's alright. I don't really recommend it, anyway." Even as relieved as he was to be alive--well, most of the time--the process of recovering had been a long one. It was neverending because it was neverending. It came with hiccups he hadn't been expecting. "There's places for everyone here. Don't need to be a martyr to find one." Heroes didn't have to die.

Encke glanced up as another spark of lightning flew from one spire in a once living home to another. "Sometimes I do actually feel like I'm speaking like them." Saying what he had said had been a fitting statement for where they sat. "The People--the Enckeans--always had this thing where they wanted to know about everyone -- but anyone who wanted to join their society was welcome to, if they wanted. There was a place for everyone. Everyone could gather around the fountain, in the amphitheaters, gain an official house -- it was a whole thing, I suppose."

And Encke was the last one left. Maybe he was still a martyr to a degree.