Welcome to Gaia! ::

Over the past couple of weeks a message has made its way through the phones and signet rings of those aligned with Order in the battle for Earth. Not a call for aid, but an invitation to catch an echo from ages past. An attempt to recapture what fragments remain of a lost culture.


An opportunity to honor the memories of the past and embrace the possibilities of the future. On the eve of the Tempestine new year, the denizens of this ancient civilization would release handmade lanterns into the waters of the bay in the hopes of guiding the souls of the recently deceased along on their journey to the Galaxy Cauldron. But with the planet just beginning to emerge from its long slumber and no human souls to speak of, it is perhaps as appropriate to celebrate new life and the hope for a better future to come as it is to remember the past.




As characters arrive on Tempesti, they find themselves standing in a round plaza paved with pale flagstones and surrounded by buildings and stalls that appear to be part of an ancient marketplace. A ring of botanical mosaics edges the circle consisting of the pointed arch doors of the larger abandoned shops. Over the rooftops, the intricately carved spires of the city’s taller buildings are visible, their pale stone gleaming in the sunlight. Colorful fabric in shades of pale purple and yellow hangs like streamers between the stalls which are adorned with sprays of shimmering flowers. Though not quite springlike, the Tempestine afternoon is markedly warmer than the winter left behind by residents of Destiny City.


A few mismatched but carefully arranged tables sit around the center of the marketplace. Among these new additions stands Sailor Tempesti, bright yellow blossoms woven into her long red hair. She makes a few final adjustments to a table laden with wreaths of colorful flowers, all ready to crown whoever chooses them, before turning her attention to the new arrivals with a friendly wave. To the side, Sailor Bacchus is uncharacteristically focused on another table which bears several trays and pots of food, shifting items periodically before turning his attention to the group. Should a character come to investigate the refreshments on offer they will find a pot of beef stew, a pot of vegetable stew, a dish of rice, and a few plates with assortments of finger foods and sweets. two carafes, one filled with hot water and the other filled with coffee alongside water and lemonade dispensers, all accompanied by cups, napkins, creamers, and sweeteners. A small wooden box with homemade teabags filled with custom blends sits beside the hot water. Bacchus briefly fiddles with the small paper signs beside each dish, irritated that he had to take it on faith that they listed the ingredients in each item, despite the assurances of the young man standing near him.


Carefully smoothing her skirt, Tempesti trots over to the group, “Hello! I’m so happy you all were able to come! I’ve never really hosted anything like this before but, well, I wanted to do something small to thank everyone. Even the people I’ve never met, for being here. In this fight I mean. For continuing to show just how much you’re all willing to put on the line so that we have a future to claim. I haven’t been a part of this for very long, but I’ve seen enough to be extremely grateful for all of your work, no matter how small an act might be.” She scans the arrivals with a smile before continuing.


“A few months ago I found a book of ancient Tempestine holidays and traditions. I…would be lying if I said that I understand everything about the culture around all of them, but this Lantern Festival stood out to me. It was a new year celebration where they would make lanterns to float down the river to honor the people they’d lost during the last year. We’ve…well, me, Bacchus, Ronan, and my sisters, have gotten some things together to make that happen. To bring back a bit of the spirit of these events. For the ancients it was a chance to remember the dead and guide them back to the Galaxy Cauldron with their lanterns. It’s been a long time since there were any souls to guide from this planet but, well, I’d like to think that they can be something new…like all of us are.”


With a gesture she draws attention to a couple of mismatched tables pushed together with an assortment of chairs. At the center of each table stands a carefully constructed lantern built from sugar glass to resemble some of the simpler stained glass lanterns found around the city. Along the surface of the table are trays of materials to construct your own lanterns including sugar glass in a variety of colors in addition to a plain clear, food paints, a thick syrup clearly intended for use as an adhesive, and paintbrushes. In front of each seat sits a small pentagonal base with a glowing crystal in the center and two smaller crystals attached to the sides. Fastidiously typed instructions sit next to each base.


“So I’d like to invite you to make your own lanterns…you can choose to make them look like regular stained glass, or you can paint your own designs, or build any style you want. I don’t know if any of you have anyone you’d want to remember today but if you don’t, part of why I’m doing this is because I want…I want us to take the space we can to define our own lives, I mean, as much as people in our situation can.”

Tempesti pauses for a moment, wondering what this world’s visitors would see in this ancient tradition and eager to see what they would.

“So please, choose a wreath, help yourself to some food, and try to think of what you want your lantern to mean to you. Afterward, we’ll have a hidden item hunt, followed by the lantern release and a boat race. The boats are really simple so it won’t be too hard to control them. Finally, we’ll end the day with a traditional drinking contest. Well, not quite traditional. Anyone who doesn’t want to drink alcohol can drink something else and try to hold back the brain freeze instead. Whoever wins that one will get a small magical item I found when I was exploring… but at the end of the day I just hope you all enjoy what we’ve put together here.”

Joyeuse Garde

When Tempesti swept her eyes over the group, she’d find one of the familiar faces there beaming at her with a dimpled, open smile of pleasure. This expression increased to one of satisfaction when their host mentioned defining their own lives. It was an endeavor that Joy could wholeheartedly throw her support behind.

The meaning of the festival, however, had her a bit pensive, and while the choice of a yellow-and-red wreath was very easy for her, the rest of what was before her was less so. She considered it as she arranged the flowers on her hair.

To release a lantern - wasn’t it? - was to symbolize the act of letting someone go, if what Tempesti said and what similar Earth rituals meant were anything to go by. And she did not intend to let her particular dead man go any time soon, if she could help it. The uncomfortable knowledge that one day, inevitably, she would - that one day he would ask her for a favor that it would be impossible for her to deny, and that she would obediently swallow her own pain and hopes for the sake of his peace, as he had often done for her - was not something that she courted if she could help it, but nor was it a stranger. She knew its face, now, and there was a dull, horrible sort of comfort in the familiarity of it.

Still. It was good to celebrate what was worth celebrating while you had it, instead of borrowing grief from the future. She lingered, unwilling to start work on her lantern just yet, and ran her eyes over the crowd looking for some familiar face. Maybe one that could tell her how to paint a damn seagull without making it look like a kindergarten rendering of a Psyduck.

Maus

A party was a party, and Joy was something of a force of nature in insisting that he accompany her. This had initially been a surprise to someone who had been very pointedly uninvited from her own birthday party, but maybe she was serious about trying to get him to cultivate some sort of honest connection, or maybe she was trying to bully him into adopting some of her own philosophy about powered life. Or maybe - whether she’d admit it or not - she just wanted him to enjoy himself, out of that pity that she had where her benevolence ought to have been.

And he would enjoy himself. He always did, didn’t he? Drinking contests and sugar everywhere - just in time for him to ruin his newly-healed teeth, no less - seemed to bode well on that front, even if his time at the Joyous Tournament had somewhat taken the wind out of his competitive sails. Maybe he could knock Grieve off a gondola, though.

But the rest… well. There was always an aspect of his mobile features that seemed to suggest he was on the brink of breaking out into a sudden smile. It was one of the only honest things about him. And it didn’t desert him now, but there was a certain abstracted, distant quality to his expression once Joy deserted him - which she did with a little too much readiness, to his mind - and left him alone to peruse the information on the flower crowns. It would have been nice to pick up one of those sunset wreaths and see in it the embodiment of something hopeful to him, but if this was meant to be a day for remembering the departed, it wasn’t right. A blank slate, though - that was closer to the truth of the only two deaths that it was in him to grieve - the one metaphorical, the other literal.

He settled white flowers on his dark hair, and after a moment - casting a glance around to make sure no one saw him - he reached out and plucked a single sunset flower from a different wreath, tucking it in among the white blossoms. Stealing a little bit of hope he didn’t deserve - well, that was right.

Eternal Murikabushi of Hunger + Yuki Tsukiyama

Seeing the note about Tempesti’s festival last week, Murikabushi had made a mental note to set tonight aside for it. He hadn’t been up to someone else’s world since the trip to Dagon to handle her Chaos infection, and while this didn’t make him feel per se restless? He did yearn to get out of the house and spend some time in space that he hadn’t visited before. Going up for something so culturally important to Tempesti, never mind something that sounded right up Muri’s alley personally, as a Halloween Gay™ who’d been raised on his grandmother’s onryo stories as much as princess movies?

Well, that sounded just perfect. So much so, in fact, that Kiyoshi had tried to ensure that everyone in the house had heard about Tempesti’s event. Whether or not any of them came, that was up to them. But they did have the information, so they could decide whether or not they felt like coming out tonight.

While he hadn’t entirely expected Yuki to be up for this adventure, Murikabushi nevertheless arrived with both a misleadingly dainty housemate and his queerplatonic partner. It had been pretty easy to take separate paths to the meeting place so that nobody might think Murikabushi and Tianyi were tailing Yuki, give or take an assumption of trying to protect him. They (and Murikabushi especially) didn’t need anybody with Chaos connecting Yuki to any Order senshi and getting in trouble for that.

For his own part, Yuki didn’t feel like getting out of the house was particularly confusing for him to want. He’d been up to his eyes in a busy, busy streaming schedule, trying to get in sufficient amounts of both Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 and Pokémon Legends ZA, and going out to Scandals for Kiyoshi’s shows only helped so much. Not that Yuki didn’t quite like ******** favorite bar—he did—but going from one enclosed indoor space to a different enclosed indoor space with more people in it? Didn’t always give Yuki the proper break from his usual work that he wanted.

The place they found themselves in, though? Perfection, including the fact that it was warm enough for Yuki to take off his winter coat and unzip his hoodie.

“Thank you, dollface.”

“Of course, Gorgeous,” Murikabushi said with a smile of his own. He wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but thankfully, Tempesti had an introduction prepared for everyone, and Murikabushi could shut up long enough to listen. “This is all fun. Sort of makes me wish I’d found more books than collections of old Murikabushian plays or poetry, rather than something you can make a party like this around. But still, isn’t this great for Tempesti?”

“As if you couldn’t put together a theatre festival. Channel all the pent up ‘not currently producing shows at Scandals’ type energy into that.”

“Gurl, Gorgeous, please. I don’t have the kind of money you’d need if you’re gonna try asking people—most of them adults with jobs and homeworlds or Wonders of their own to repair—to take all kinds of extra time to rehearse some play from the outer space Middle Ages, and let me trick them out with costumes, and all of that.” This all seemed perfectly sensible to Murikabushi, and he honestly didn’t understand how Yuki wasn’t getting that on his own. “Anyway, we’ll need to introduce you to some more people and let them know that you’re with me. But for now, why don’t we go get some of those floral wreaths and focus on the festival actually going on right now tonight?”

Tianyi got the smile from Murikabushi this time. “One of those pink and yellow ones might look really nice on you? If you like them?”

For himself, Murikabushi went for one of the iridescent crowns—rainbows were always a good statement to make, thank you—and after some consideration, Yuki took one of the purple and green numbers.

Grieve

Tempesti really wasn't a bad place to visit, and celebrations nearly always meant free food. The fact that it was an effort to revive a piece of the world's past and lost culture was...

Grieve, not wanting to think of sad s**t and be some kind of ********' Deep Space Downer, grimly plucked up a sunset wreath with one hand and a large bowl of stew with the other. There was a gaggle of housemates off to one side, which wasn't a surprise as she'd had to have Murikabushi read the invite to her. Sure she'd gotten the hang of the magic that was text to speech, but she liked when people did her that sort of favor. Not that she was gonna get all feelsy and think too deeply about it, but it was nice. What was also nice and a surprise was seeing Moi'rahn in their midst. Good to see him out, and taking part in the life that invisibly surrounded him on Earth.

She didn't join them though, instead just offering the three a nod and a dismissive wave of flowers. She saw them all the time, now was her chance to bother every other a*****e at the party.

Grieve looked around and saw a furtive bit of flower filching. Why was that little s**t being sneaky? She'd bump him with her elbow as she passed behind, but at his height that'd mean having to literally stoop to his ******** level. So she settled for a drawled, "Loser."

Tipping her bowl back as she took a seat at the arts n crafts table, she downed the whole thing in one prolonged drink.

Despite the way her life had calmed somewhat, the invitation to what sounded like a cultural festival-slash-party up in space was still a breath of fresh air. She had settled decently into her new positions at the lab, but work would always be work, which went hand-in-hand with stress, but the sort she could now at least leave at the office when she went home at the end of her shift. Knight life was also... Well, thankfully for the moment just more of the same. She wouldn't look that gift horse in the mouth, though she knew she still had something big ahead of her that she had to do, but she felt a little better about that, too.

So maybe the breath of fresh air was just that it was a break from her newly established routines. It was good to pause and celebrate even the simple things with friends and allies, wasn't it?

Not to mention Tempesti, both the senshi and the planet (or at least, what she could see of it), was beautiful.

Ekstrom offered her a bright smile from where she stood as the senshi welcomed them all. Her eyes meandered to the various tables first, and then to the others that were there. She recognized several of them, though her eyes settled on the two she was most familiar with before approaching. It was weird, being so happy to see one while equally as irate to see the other.

"Hey," she greeted Joy happily, then turned to Maus and repeated the greeting in a slightly flatter tone, before turning to the table of flower wreaths and starting to read. She reached for the pink and yellow one, hesitated briefly, then started reaching for the sunset one. She hesitated again, grumbled quietly to herself, and withdrew her hand.

"Maybe I should go with whichever one matches what I'm wearing," she said, looking down at her decidedly blue uniform and seriously considering it for a long moment. The blue wreath of flowers was equally as beautiful and meaningful as the others, after all. Who wouldn't want wisdom? Plus there was plenty she still had to learn about her Wonder! So it definitely applied.

Tempesti was delighted with each new arrival. Joy of course was always a welcome sight, though she didn’t think she recognized her mustachioed friend (Maus). She greeted them both before her attention to the newly arrived deep space senshi (Feronia) who addressed her.

“Of course! I’m happy you’re here. I’m still learning about these traditions myself. I only learned to read the language a few months ago, but what I’ve read is pretty interesting. It leaned pretty heavily on the idea of the planet’s spirits as spending the year preparing the spirits of the dead to move on, and during the lantern festival the ones who were ready could follow the lanterns back to the Galaxy Cauldron. It was also a chance for people to celebrate life, the ones of the people who’d passed on and the lives of the people who were still around.

I don’t have the spirit angle, but I thought it would be nice to take the time to focus on what we have that’s worth celebrating, and what’s worth remembering. Is there anything else you’d like to know?” As she waited for a response, she offered Muri, Tianyi, and their companion (Yuki) a bright smile and friendly wave.

Seeming to lose interest in the cards on the food table at the sight of the newcomers, Bacchus saunters over toward the group with a grin and a honey pastry. A wreath of yellow and red flowers rests awkwardly atop the spiny growths on his head.

He opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Turned back toward the table with the lanterns and began making tiny, nitpicky adjustments to the complex designs on his own. Their meaning was no business of anyone but him, but he still liked the way they came out. And if anyone needed touch ups or tips on their own, well, they could ask him.



RP Continues Here

Kua'kua

It seemed only right that Kua should attend a celebration on the planet she had - in some small way - helped bring back to life. The planet had been beautiful when she'd first visited it, but she hadn't had much time to enjoy the views or investigate the creatures that called it home, what with the robots that needed smashing and everything. Plus, she hadn't known anyone - literally anyone - then.

This was different. It was less putting a brave foot forward and more...returning to a welcoming space. Kua'kua couldn't remember the last time she'd had that particular sensation. Familiarity had, for her, long-meant death and desolation, and some part of her still couldn't quite believe that it could mean something different now.

But it did.

She arrived and remained in the background, listening to Tempesti's greeting and explanation of events. She didn't know about this 'boat race' business, but she was excited about the idea of building something. And, of course, the flowers were always a nice bonus. Kua'kua's mood instantly lifted any time she was even nearby to beautiful flowers, so that was where she went first, peering curiously at the table.

Carefully, she lifted a wreath of yellow flowers and studied it. She couldn't read the English writing on the little card, but she'd always enjoyed yellow flowers; they just seemed - happy. And that was what she wanted, for herself, and for everyone she knew: happiness. Safety and security. So this was the wreath she was about to plunk on her head, but...

Well, there were so many lovely flowers. It seemed - silly, to only take one kind. So, after a moment or two of consideration, she wove a few pink-and-yellow flowers in as well, and one large one the color of the sunset, as an accent point. Or maybe it was the colors of a sunrise; she couldn't really tell. Satisfied in her work, she placed the wreath on her head and made sure it was balanced, then turned to survey the table, where lanterns were being crafted.

It looked like a very sticky process, but, well, when on Tempesti...

Kua'kua had nimble fingers, and after a few minutes of observation, she began to assemble her own lantern, in the colors of her homeworld, as it had been before the Chaos had arrived and made everything an empty shell of what it had been. Deep purples, soft greens, and the blue-green-yellow of the ocean for miles and miles, reflecting the sun and the sky and all of the brilliance of the planet, contained right there on one little lantern. She understood the point of these events well enough, but - well, she didn't think one little lantern was really enough for the loss she was mourning. She'd need to make a lantern for every being living on her planet to feel it was appropriate, but they didn't have that kind of time, so Kua'kua simply set her focus on making the best representation of everything Kuanian she possibly could, with what little time she had.

As ever - it never felt like she was enough, but as ever, she did her best.



Edam had not accompanied her brother when he went to Tempesti - but after the idiocy that had transpired then, she sure as heck wasn't going to let him go back alone. No matter how much he insisted that it was just a party, and that nothing would go wrong, and that there almost definitely wouldn't be any horrifying robots to fight this time, really. She did not trust that nonsense as far as she could throw it, and she could not throw very far anyway.

However - she did have to admit that the planet itself was beautiful. It almost took her breath away. It was shimmering and lovely, and it had - it was an actual city, which for some reason seemed in some way anachronistic to Edam, but then again, she'd only been to two planets other than Earth.

When had this become normal? When had this become her life?

Edam shook her head at herself. "Come on," Edam said to Blarney, "let's go get flower crowns." Edam paused as Blarney raised an eyebrow and pointed to the top of his head, where in fact a flower crown already rested, then rolled her eyes once again. "Okay, fine, a flower bracelet. Or an anklet, or a necklace, or just - double flower crown. Come on, if nothing's bad here, let's go and do things." She said this in such a way as to imply that she did not think nothing was bad here; just because it was quiet and pretty didn't mean she should trust it.

Edam guided them over to the table, peering at the explosion of color curiously. "Oooh," she said, picking up a wreath of purple and green flowers. "These match!" Edam said, setting the flower crown experimentally over her clipped-on antlers. It required some wiggling, but she managed it. "I should've checked what they meant first," she said belatedly with a sigh, looking down at the little note. "Prosperity and abundance?" Edam considered this and shrugged after a moment or two. "Sure, I guess. As long as it's an abundance of good things. You don't think these flowers are haunted or something, do you?" This made Blarney laugh, and Edam chuckled too, but she was only halfway kidding about it. If something bad was contained in these flowers, she was never going to let Blarney live it down (or either of them come to Tempesti ever again).

"What colors do you want?" Edam asked, looking over at Blarney. "You already have..." Edam studied the colors of Blarney's flower crown. "All of them. I think you have every color here represented." Edam chuckled, then looked back at the little cards. "Oooor..." Edam reached out and plucked a pink and yellow flower from its wreath, then affixed it to one of the Earth markers at his shoulder. He grabbed his own, a matching one, and put it on the other side, so that his shoulderpads, at least, were celebratory.



Blarney didn't need Edam to say why she'd picked those flowers - her teasing grin was enough. It was about romance, which Edam had been teasing him about since New Years, in a loving and supportive but still very very annoying way, the way only a twin sister could do.

In truth, it was - it was kind of weird, to have a romantic...thing. Relationship. Thing. Again. It was kind of weird, but it was - it was still nice. It was nice for someone to have crush on him. Kind of unbelievable, and even more unbelievable that it was Halia, whom he'd counted thoroughly as his best friend, beyond Madeline, of course.

In his heart of hearts, he wasn't sure he had changed his feelings for he all that much, but he'd said they could give it a try. Maybe it would change, but if not - well, he wouldn't lead her on. He refused to do that. So he'd...he'd figure it out. Maybe it would all snap into place and he'd feel like an idiot for doubting it. Certainly wouldn't be the first time...

"Can we eat these?" Blarney asked, mostly to no one, as Edam dragged them over to the construction table. It appeared to be made of sugar, but Blarney wasn't sure if it was sugar-sugar or some kind of...alien, inedible sugar, or like, sugar that was only meant to be used for constructing lanterns, or something. What did he know? He knew nothing, about anything, ever. He was about to lift a piece to his sticking-out tongue, but Edam slapped his hand away.

"What?" Blarney whined, but Edam just gave him a death-glare. It's not appropriate! he heard, but he wasn't actually sure if it was actually his sister, speaking over their telepathic earrings, or if he just knew what that face meant and imagined it. Either way, he gave Edam a sheepish, apologetic smile, and took the piece away from his mouth obediently.

Well, if he couldn't eat it...Blarney fidgeted, glancing around the assembled Order members in attendance. "Oh, there's Grieve!" Blarney said, brightening considerably. "Can I go--" Edam waved him off, and Blarney scrambled away, content to leave the high-focus-required construction-work to his sister, in favor of hanging out with the scariest alien he'd ever met.

"Hey!" Blarney said, hopping over to join Grieve. "Happy, um, Lantern Day!" And Joy was here too! Blarney's smile only widened. "To you, too, Joy! This is--this is way better than the last time we were here, huh? Edam--my sister--" Blarney said, indicating where Madeline was busily assembling their joint lantern, "she said she thinks that there's gonna be more secret robots for us to fight. I told her that was ridiculous. It's totally ridiculous," he added, but his smile faltered slightly, and he couldn't help but add,

"Right?"

If there were more stupid evil robots, after he'd sworn up and down that there wouldn't be, Edam would never let him hear the end of it - and she probably wouldn't let him go back to Tempesti ever again. And he liked Tempesti, and wanted to be able to go wherever he wanted, evil robots or no.

Deep Space Sailor Lovas of Fragility

"Ah, another sunny planet..." Lovas hummed in a tone that was distinctly grousing, though he managed to keep much of the discomfort off of his face by not scrunching his eyes as he smiled a fanged grin up toward the light reflecting from nearby buildings. There'd been a point in his life when he had mistakenly believed that most planets would be more dusky, like his world. But the more he traveled, the more it started to seem like a bright, beautiful, sunshiny daytime planet was the most typical setting.

It should make him happy. Any scenery different than what he'd spent a thousand years staring at should be thrilling and exciting. And it was! It was. It was just... the bright had a way of giving him a headache, and that was why his preference was to stay inside during Earth's daytime.

Maybe he would have today too, except the last time he'd gotten a little ping on his Senshi phone for a party, he had not been permitted to go (well, 'permitted' wasn't so much the correct word, as no one could really stop him, but the Knights overseeing his Earth integration had been far from enthusiastic about releasing someone they knew so little about on a wonder that was supposed to be having a peaceable time).

But for this message, Regal knew him a bit better, and of course Lovas was very well-intentioned and not likely to cause a disturbance, and Regal would go with him just to be sure.

Lovas pulled the smaller man by the arm, heading toward a table of snacks that was conveniently out of the sunshine.

From here, he had a more unobscured view of those gathered, and it pleased him, brightened his expression fully to see a small scattering of faces he recognized. "Look! Feronia and Bacchus, and there's Alekto too! Hiii~!" He called, deep voice booming like thunder through the little courtyard. Lovas did not, however, recognize the hostess of the event, and he turned a curious gaze toward her as she mingled with her friends nearby.




Squire Regal of Chronos

Regal blinked doey crystal eyes up to his beefy Senshi friend as Lovas called to those he was familiar with. "You... you've met some of these people?" He asked, incredulous. He probably shouldn't have been so surprised. Lovas did go out most days as his powered self- more than Regal did by a wide margin. ...Which was maybe not so strange for someone who didn't have to work or have a family to take care of... But Lovas had only been here a month? Two? Oh, God, no, it was three, and he already recognized more people than Regal could name from his entire... five years... of being a Knight.

But their conditions were different, and Regal was not going to beat himself up for having priorities that didn't completely fit with being powered up very often. He was here now, at this (hopefully safe) event, and that had to count for something. It would've been more enjoyable to have Sawtooth or even Zero here as well, but... With a sigh, he had to accept that being Lovas' chaperone was the most he was going to get out of this.

He followed Lovas focus to the red-haired young woman at the center of so many, looking the picture of someone who fit in among the scenery of this planet. "That's Tempesti," he told Lovas. Even though Regal hadn't met her personally, he had read the message she'd sent out, which was more than Lovas was capable of.

"Aaand... that one there-" He notched a finger to the underside of Lovas' chin, pulling his attention as Regal gestured to a lovely blond Earth Knight. "That one is Joy. She sent the message for the 'party' you didn't get to attend." Another Knight Regal had not met, but he'd heard her name called by a scattering of others here, and he remembered her specifically because 'the party that Lovas had not been allowed to attend' was a very minor point of contention in his household.

Since they were near the tables of food, Regal offered a small smile and said, "Get something to eat, and then I'll read the flower meanings to you."

After all, they should be here not for the free food, but to participate in this world's traditions. He could only imagine how meaningful it would be to a Senshi to have people on their world, once again partaking in things that had been lost so long ago...