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 Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2026 2:32 pm
The door jingled as Khaz entered his uncle's stained glass shop. Tyriq looked up, smiled, waved, pointed to where Keesh was sorting through a shipment of sheets of glass, and then bent down to resume noisily grinding a piece of glass to the right shape. Khaz nodded thankfully, and made his way carefully over to his cousin. He had texted her, asking if she wanted to go see his Wonder this afternoon, after he finished practicing his driving, and she had agreed quite readily.
Underneath it all, the teenager was quite excited. He hadn't been to his asteroid since...last spring, which was altogether too long. He'd kept putting it off, saying he needed to know how to drive a car, how to repair an electric one, that he needed to do homework, be there for Mason, do his duty as a senshi, research ancient Egypt to have some idea of what he was looking at when he looked at Aberdonia...but, really, he'd been putting off going, because, as much as he wanted to help the asteroid, the scope of the project felt too big. But that wasn't really a good excuse.
Thus, finally ready to try to drive one of the cars, if any were in adequate condition, he had asked Keesh if she wanted to go. Much as he knew Yasmeen also wanted to go, he didn't want to think about the risk if something bad happened to his baby sister. Thus, it was just him and their cousin going at this time.
He needed to check on whichever car was most drive-able, to see what it needed, so no tools or supplies at this time, just water, snacks, and some tools that one of the Egyptology books mentioned archaeologists used: A huge jug of water, a big basin to hold the water in, some dead toothbrushes, and a trowel, though the only one he'd been able to get hold of had been one from the gardening section of the local hardware store. Oh, and some rather larger dust brushes. Plus some more notebooks. He wanted to get some more time taking a look at the hieroglyphs at some point.
He reached Keesh and waved, walking loudly enough that she'd be able to hear him, so she wouldn't be startled. "Hi," he said. "Ready to go?" The plan was to head out the back door of the shop, like they usually did, transform, and teleport before Khaz in particular had a chance to freeze to death.
Keesh had gotten her college applications done before Christmas, and didn't have much in the way of homework over the winter break, so she didn't have as much to do, mostly practice piano, cook with her dad, help in the glass shop, do some patrols, periodically check in on Sylvain and the Chapel...honestly, it was fairly quiet, as busy as that all sounded.
Which was why, when she'd gotten Khaz's message, Keesh had been startled. Pleased, but startled. Khaz admitted he'd tried sending from his senshi phone, but thought that there was a compatibility issue, and they might need to ask a Mauvian--an alien cat species that served as helpers to the senshi--for their input and technological expertise. And the suggestion...she'd wanted to see Khaz's homeworld for a while now, ever since she'd been the one to go with Yasmeen to see the chibi senshi's homeworld, but the timing had never been right. Which was a shame, Khaz had been a senshi longer, put more hours into his homeworld, and had also grown into a super senshi. His homeworld clearly meant a lot to him, but he hadn't shared it with many other people as of yet. Described it, sure, but not shown it off.
Keesh's subspace was loaded with water, snacks, more water in very large jugs, notebook, writing utensils, a hat she could wear to fend off the harsh sunlight, and supplies suitable for cleaning off old mosaics, rags, brushes, and appropriate cleaning fluids. Khaz had been hesitant to go on a cleaning binge, but Keesh was fascinated by the mosaics Khaz had described, and she wanted to try helping him restore them. Maybe not today, but at some point in the relatively near future.
While waiting for her cousin to come pick her up for their travel to the stars, she'd started sorting through the latest glass shipment, slotting sheets of colored and, sometimes, textured glass, onto the appropriate shelves, moving carefully and neatly to avoid dropping them.
At the sound of footsteps, she looked up, smiled, and waved at her cousin. "Yep! I'll go let my dad know," she said, carefully putting away the sheet of glass she was holding before scurrying off to let her dad know that the two cousins were heading off to do "errands." Her father didn't need to know that these "errands" were on an asteroid a long ways from Earth. She didn't know if, or when, she'd ever be able to tell him, but that was a problem for future her, not current her.
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Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2026 5:10 pm
Khaz led the way to the back door, stepping through and pulling out his henshin pen. Lifting it, he murmured softly, "Aberdonia Asteroid Power, Make-Up!" The feeling of layers of linen enveloped his skin once again, leaving him transformed into his super fuku. He still wasn't very used to it yet, but it was beautiful...if completely wrong for this climate. As soon as his cousin had summoned her weapon, completing her own transformation, he took her free hand, pulled out his senshi phone with his other, and tapped the homeworld button.
Light flared around the teenagers for a second, before fading and resolving to the bright light of early afternoon in the showroom of the little car dealership he'd been using as his base. Looking around, it hadn't changed much--
But the car had changed a bit. Where once had sat a rust bucket, and had, last time he'd been here, been only a half-rusted car, was now a gleaming car, polished chrome and ultramarine paint job. Last time, before going home, he'd tried hooking up the car to a charging cable he'd found, and the car was still hooked up. The inside also gleamed, black leather underneath sheepskin seat covers. No seatbelts, but he might have to ask about installing them himself at a later date. Better still, as he glanced around at the lap desks, he saw something he hadn't quite caught before, alongside a slight shift in his energy levels: a low amount of corrosion vibrating itself off a key fob, leaving it glinting a pale gold, with a steely key and decorated with inlaid lapis lazuli.
Nothing else had changed with that slight draw on his powers, really, but it seemed like Aberdonia was reaching out through its senshi to fix itself. He grinned, knelt down to swipe the keys, and, as he did so, gently patted the floor with its still-grubby and sun-faded mosaics. "Thank you, Aberdonia," he said softly, before getting back to his feet and walking toward the car.
"So, this is Aberdonia," he said, gesturing around to the world around him as he made his way over to remove the charging cable from its port, and slot the key into the ignition. The car hummed and juddered, slowly coming to life, a battery meter shaped like a papyrus reed showing the energy gauge as full. "Give me a sec to pack up my tent, I want to see if I can get us to the palace complex in this thing. I don't know when the inundation will arrive here, and it'd be better to have my base camp at a higher elevation, like at the palace complex," he explained, heading into the office space where he'd set up his little base camp. "I can answer your questions as best we can on the way."
Keesh followed her cousin, summoning her holly branch as she passed through the door, regular clothing abruptly replaced by the sensation of leaves, before the garb of a page was draped about her form. Green Chapel took Aberdonia's hand, and, in a flash, the two were teleported to the asteroid her cousin called his own.
Blinking into the bright afternoon sunlight that filtered through the windows, with blinds and geometric grilles, she peered around.
It looked like a car dealership, but old-fashioned, with the desks as lap desks placed on the ground. The clear focal point of the room was the only thing in good repair, but, for Green Chapel, the floor was the real star attraction. Kneeling down, she brushed at the dust and sand and dirt, peering at the beautiful mosaic. Rich hues, whites and blues and greens and golds and blacks, very few warm tones, laid out a clear pattern for where everything belonged in the space, sleek and cool to the touch, but...ohhh...the motifs, of stars and papyri and the river and what looked rather like riverine flora and fauna...it was so beautiful. Badly worn and sun-faded, but it was truly an achievement in glass. And, for all that this desert asteroid should leave the world a hot, arid misery to hang out in, the building was surprisingly cool, clearly well-ventilated.
But, unfortunately, Aberdonia clearly wanted to get to the palace, which made sense. It was a shame this floor might not be safe from the inundations that clearly kept the flood plain fertile, if the glimpses out the windows were anything to go by, but, if it had been worthwhile to make them in the first place....
They could wait to be cleaned off until after the inundation.
Rubbing the floor tiles gently, the page murmured, "I'll come back someday to help your senshi with as many mosaics as I can. Promise." She stood up, and helped load her cousin's camping gear into the trunk of the car before hopping in the front passenger seat.
"Okay, so you said this is an asteroid that is like if ancient Egypt progressed naturally and without interference straight to the 1920s, only on the back of solar power and electricity, instead of carbon emissions and electricity. But you also said the electrical grid isn't operational yet. So, how is the dealership staying cool?" she asked as her cousin slowly began to drive the car out of the showroom and through a set of open doors at one end of the room, onto the crumbling, weedy cobblestone road beyond.
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Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2026 6:17 pm
Aberdonia drove slowly and cautiously, trusting wholly neither the car, nor his own abilities. With the road's poor state, it wasn't easy going, not at first--but, then, he felt something taken out of him, and the road smoothed out a little. The asteroid, trying to help a little bit at a time.
Thank you, but I think we should save some of that mojo for future visits, don't you? he asked silently and affectionately. The sense of something leaving him stopped abruptly, but he could swear it was an almost shy thing. He smiled, and returned to his cousin's question.
"From what I can tell, Aberdonia utilized a pre-industrial method of air conditioning you still see in Egypt and the Middle East today, where they set up little towers on top of the building to catch cross breezes, and funnel them down into the building below," he explained, as they trundled up a broad avenue toward the palace complex on its hill, the family compounds growing more and more grandiose the closer they got. More of the gates sealing them off had the dents taken out, but he could still see how the vegetation choked the colonnaded courtyards beyond.
So that was still a project to work on, clearing the vegetation. Well, if he could go from residence to residence, or even to other buildings, once he'd cleared out the palace, and use the car to do so, that would make the work a bit quicker. Particularly if he could get some help.
And it was tempting to get some help and input from his Aunt Shams, but she still didn't know her daughter, nephew, and niece were all doing magical superheroics with minimal supervision, so that was a nonstarter of an idea.
He sighed, and drove onward.
The palace rose ahead, gilded gates wide open, as though to welcome him home, and, sooner than anticipated, they were slowing to park in the main courtyard of the palace complex, with the library sitting demurely on their left, still dark and quiet.
But the air itself wasn't quiet.
No.
There was a buzzing he hadn't heard before.
He frowned, tilting his head in confusion.
What was that, and where was it coming from? He hadn't heard it on Aberdonia before....
Green Chapel nodded at his explanation, watching the buildings go by as they drove up the street. Her cousin was right, they looked very ancient Egyptian, but they were also very beautiful in their poor repair and overgrowth. Some of the gilded compound gates even had an Art Deco vibe to them, while remaining true to their cultural roots. Now that he mentioned the little towers, she noticed them, along with the degraded arrays of solar panels.
It was hard to not feel a little jealous...until she remembered two things. One, Aberdonia was an entire asteroid, where Green Chapel was just a woodland manor, chapel, and the surrounding forest; her cousin was always going to have more to do to fix up his asteroid than she would ever have to do to help her Wonder. Two, she had Sylvain to talk to and get guidance from; insofar as she knew, only descended knights had that, so, in a sense, the page was in the minority of knights who were never, ever alone when they went to their place of power, and the even smaller minority on the side of Order who had that experience. And, much as her first meeting with Sylvain hadn't been ideal, it was still sort of nice to have someone around to talk to about their Wonder. It removed a lot of guesswork from the equation, but the senshi in the driver's seat would have to figure everything out on his own from pure hard work and observation.
In those regards, Green Chapel had things a lot easier than Aberdonia, if less flashy.
As they parked the car, she hopped out, and took a look around. If anything, the palace complex truly lived up to the term "palatial."
And...there was an odd buzzing...coming from the overgrown gardens....
"Khaz...do you hear what I hear?" she asked curiously. Not a bee...not a fly...what was it....
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Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2026 7:35 pm
Aberdonia nodded. "Yeah, I do, Keesh," he said, locking the car and making his way toward the water gardens he'd seen on his first visit. The faint buzzing came from that direction....
Pulling aside reeds as he reached the first pool, the senshi looked around...and saw the source of the buzzing.
Dragonflies, glinting in an iridescent shade of turquoise, flitted around the pool, wings shimmering in their own pale, translucent iridescence. Unable to speak, he extended a finger, and one alighted on his finger, resting its wings flatly, trusting and content with the shape of the world, before flitting away.
He watched it go, struggling to find the words, before a memory dislodged, presumably from the pharaoh he'd been in his previous life.
"Faience dragonflies," he whispered, before memories came to him, of being a child in the palace, chasing them, trying to catch them in a jar, until someone--his past self's mother, perhaps?--gently caught his past self.
"Now, now, Neferreswet, you leave the faience dragonflies alone," the woman laughed.
"But Mother, they're so pretty, I just wanted to see them up close!" the princess pouted.
"Yes, my jewel, but think of how you would feel if you were one of them, and someone else caught you. Besides, they have a very important job to do, they eat the summerflies, so the summerflies don't bite us and make us sick. They have an important job to do, as do all things that live on our world," the queen said, as she gently popped the lid off the jar, freeing the dragonflies to their pond.
Faience dragonflies. They kept the summerflies in check. What were summerflies, a local kind of mosquito? Then they absolutely got to stay in the palace rent-free, and they very definitely got left alone. He smiled as he watched them continue to zip serenely across the surface of the pond.
Neferreswet? Had that been his past self? He had some sense that she had been cute, and, based on the first memory, she'd also clearly been doing fine as a pharaoh. Maybe he'd get more memories, so he could get a stronger self of the queen he'd once been....
Green Chapel followed more slowly, and watched as one of the lightly-colored dragonflies rested on her cousin's finger. It was a beautiful little thing, and the first time she'd really seen life on a homeworld or Wonder--aside, of course, from Joyeuse Garde. Was this what could be accomplished by continuing to grow in power and strength, and continuing to care for their places of power? If so...the page grinned, finding herself looking forward to that prospect.
Then her cousin seemed to zone out after he named them. Faience dragonflies. A pretty name for a pretty species of dragonfly.
But her cousin was still zoned out, and the page wanted a brief tour of the palace before they had to get home.
"Khaz? I hate to interrupt, but can you tell me about the dragonflies while we look around? I know we're not going to start doing any work on the mosaics today, but I'd like to see which area you'd like me to start on first, and what kinds of supplies I'll need, aside from cleaning supplies," she said in a slightly teasing tone.
The senshi blinked and nodded. "I'm sorry about that, I was getting a past life memory. And I can tell you about the dragonflies, but it's not much," he said as he led away from the pools, and toward the throne room. "I think they ate a local species of mosquito, or something else that filled the same ecological niche. And, ummm, I was kinda thinking about asking if you could start on the mosaic in the throne room?" he asked as he showed her in.
It wasn't really any better than when he'd last been here. But it hadn't been his focus, not since his first couple visits, not even when he was on Earth. Which was a shame, it was truly beautiful. But, aside from the herculean task of restoring the mosaic, his next priorities would probably be to get the vegetation under control, research the language, and maybe get the electrical grid going again. Those three were, if anything, far larger tasks than cleaning the palace, but...it felt right to start there. Yes. Everyone--and everything--deserved to be beautiful, even if that thing was a building on a lonely asteroid.
Plus, the old queen--who must have been Neferreswet's mother--had clearly urged his past self to care for all the people of Aberdonia. If anything, that felt like validation of his priorities. He smiled, and said, "Here's the throne room. We don't really have time today, but, once I get stuff shuffled in here, and we get base camp reestablished, I can show you the rest of the palace before we get home," he added, unthinkingly putting the Aberdonian key fob into subspace, unwittingly marking the car parked in the palace courtyard as his own. Progress had been made, and would continue to be made.
Yes.
Good.
Green Chapel followed her cousin down colonnaded corridors flanking vast water gardens, choked with greenery, in stark and aggressive contrast to the barren autumn-and-winter look of the Chapel during the dark half of the year, though, to be fair, the Chapel also had evergreens, alleviating the barrenness of the vegetation a bit.
As the stepped through torn and diaphanous linen curtains that shifted in the small breezes that percolated through the palace, she felt herself gasp in awe. The enormous columns appeared shaped as papyrus reeds, terminating in umbels that held up a ceiling painted in flaking ultramarine and gold, seeming to portray the night sky, but not with any constellations she recognized. At the far end was a low dais topped with a gilded throne, with a pattern of papyri and...some weird kind of animal, with a crocodilian face, a leonine mane and forequarters, and hippo hindquarters. Whatever that thing was, she hoped the real thing, if there was a real thing, wasn't very big. That thing looked terrifying enough on its own.
Looking down, however, she gazed on a truly massive mosaic floor, again, showing scenes from a riverbank, flanking a tiled river that flowed toward the throne, the people facing toward the throne, under star-spangled skies that extended toward the colonnade that separated the throne room from the gardens that flanked the colossal chamber. Everything about the space was flamboyantly beautiful and richly appointed, speaking to the power and wealth of the asteroid her cousin had ruled in past lives.
Cleaning and repairing the mosaic would take a few days without more help. However often her cousin could come here, with as many hands as possible to clean everything up, she'd have to poke him into doing it. And the first step was just the cleaning, to ascertain the level of damage and wear. If a lot of tiles were missing, this would be a nightmare to fix. But it was so unspeakably beautiful.
"Khaz, you're taking me and as many people as you can carry up here as often as you can to fix this," she said dreamily. "I'll get it back in its groove, and I'll do whatever you need me to do for demanding you do this for me, even if it is all ultimately for you."
She heard her cousin laugh, and agree, and, all too soon, it was time to get their things together and head back to Earth, before their parents started to wonder what had become of the two teenagers.
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