Welcome to Gaia! ::

Notice - this is not yet canon but, seeing as how Fyre will be on the road for a while and then unpacking for a while, we're doing it ahead of time so I can compile and post whenever I bloody well need it. xd

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Galatea hestitated at the border of the yard, toes curling in the grass as she stood and studied the brightly colored lantern hanging from a sturdy iron pole. Her friend's home. Hadrian's home. She chewed absently on her lower lip and twisted her fingers together. It was manners to do this, of course, and she was proud and excited and a bit scared at her decision. Inside, she knew Hadrian would support her; he always did. She had never known someone so open and wonderful. He did not laugh at her learning magic, sad as that magic turned out to be so far. He never even teased her about being too strong or too strange.

If she could not be the Captain when she grew up, Galatea decided that it would be more than enough to be like Hadrian.

Which led her to this yard, this moment, and everything. She hoped she could be as brave as her friend.

Gathering up her will in both hands, Galatea took off from the ground and bee-lined towards the lantern. She hesitated again for a moment on the ledge and then, chin raised, lifted her hand to knock. "Hadrian?" she called. "Are you home?"

Worried or not, Galatea immediately lit up with a smile at the sight of her friend. "Oh, I'm glad," she announced, clasping her hands together in front of him. "I know you keep telling me that it is alright to visit without warning but I worry about missing you or... Well, I don't want to be a burden."

"But you are here," she pointed out, "and you always have been. I think we have extraordinary luck."

Seeing as how both feien were remarkably likely to step off the edge of the world should it have existed, the statement would have had anyone else dying of laughter. Galatea and Hadrian, however, were also blessed with quite literal minds.

Galatea tilted her head to study Hadrian for a moment and then smiled again shyly. "I have something to tell you."

Galatea took a deep breath and then suddenly reached out to take Hadrian's hand, the smile gone a bit nervous. "I wanted to say goodbye to you," she whispered.

As was her habit, the blood feien missed the depth of Hadrian's sudden mood shift and only registered the basics. He was sad and she had made him sad. Her own face falling, she squeezed his hand. "It is something I ought to do," she explained. "And, with the Captain doing better, I thought that now is the best time. I'm going to miss you so much, though."

"May I send you post cards?" She looked extremely hopeful and more than a little determined. "You said it was easy once you figured out the rules."

She nodded solemnly, taking his words with a weight that he probably never experienced before. "I will need your address." She smiled again. "But you don't have to worry about writing back to me, of course. I probably would never be able to get any post cards back. After all, I don't know how far I will have to go in my search."

She blinked, then flushed, looking down at her toes. "I'm going on a quest," she explained quietly. "Just like Mr. Aleric did. I will see places like you did and have stories to tell. It's," she paused and wrinkled her nose, a new gesture undoubtedly learned from either Marne or Soho, "a trident. I will be looking for the Trident of Woe. To rescue it, I suppose, and retrieve it."