Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ronan swung his arms as he walked, still not a patrol.

No solo patrols.

Not yet.

They’d sense him if he was wearing his stupid uncomfortable outfit and he’d still have a paper lantern and they’d probably laugh at him before they ate him and it would probably be more embarrassing to die like that than to die pretending he hadn’t said yes to that talking orb but then he was supposed to take care of things and he’d impulsively chosen responsibility and even if it was a dumb idea he couldn’t drop it so he had to do it and-.

He ran his hands aggressively through his hair. Quiet. For now. For a minute.

Ugh.

Wait.

Senshi on that bench.

Hm.

Ronan stepped back out of sight, it seemed unlikely that the senshi had spotted him so that was good. Secret identity solidarity was the best course of action here. Yes? Yes. With a resigned sigh he conjured the uncomfortable costume onto his body, hands immediately flying to loosen the cravat at his throat. He’d already learned that attempts to adjust the strands of pearls in his hair were too unpleasant to be worth the effort.

Squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath, the page stepped back into sight and offered a slight wave.

“Er. Hello.”

Another awkward wave

Somniorum was well aware of his painful inadequacy when it came to small talk. Truth be told, it would have been more alarming if he suddenly became a master conversationalist.

“Nothing has decided that I’d make a good dinner so I can’t complain.” A quick glance to his lantern reminded him that he had plenty to complain about, at least in that department.

Not being eaten still outweighed that. Even if it wouldn’t do a thing to prevent him from being eaten.

“How are you?”

The stiffness of his shoulders betrayed him.

“Anything..try to eat you?”

Somewhere nothing could eat him? That definitely didn’t sound plausible. At least not since they’d first decided that he looked appetizing. The Moon, maybe. Nothing had tried to eat him there. But then maybe there were some other iterations of extraterrestrial carcinization that hadn’t shown their faces, claws, or little skittery legs or whatever other unfriendly appendages they might have.

Could be a homeworld?

There could definitely be crabs there.

That was his reality. Supernatural wardrobe changes, cosmic forces, space travel. And yet somehow crabs managed to remain high on his list of concerns. Maybe that was something he could reevaluate.

Probably no youma, which was definitely a step up from here. Not that he could hide from them forever.

Even if that wasn’t a logistical absurdity it was a direct violation of the promise he’d made.
On the Moon.
It was unlikely that he would ever get used to the ridiculousness of that statement.

Yeah, yeah it was a homeworld.

“Are you…sure?” It interested him, fascinated him if he was honest, but he couldn’t shake the anxiety that he might…he wasn’t sure.

Break something?

Summon a horror from beyond the stars?

Maybe he could help. Or his ability could. The one useful thing he could manage and it didn’t work in his stiff new outfit.

“Alright, sure. Let’s go.” s**t, he forgot to say his name. “Somniorum, page. Moon’s page.”

Crickets. OK, he could work with crickets.

Unless they were giant crickets, he would have a bit of a problem with that. He definitely wouldn’t be happy about that. “So they’re regular crickets, right? They aren’t huge or anything?” Somniorum tried to keep a lightness in his voice, maybe he could pass the question off as a joke. If the answer was “yes,” then he could deal with that if they made themselves a problem.

“It’s nice to meet you too.” He was grateful that Tea answered the question of whether or not this was a handshake situation before he could ask. He would have preferred to err on the side of caution but the nature of their circumstances made everything at least a little bit weird.

As the disorienting sensation of space travel, space travel took him, it made a point of driving that notion home. Orienting himself might not be easy, but at least this planet looked peaceful. There could be all kinds of horrible things hiding, but he trusted that Tea would know her own world best.

“Wow.” Somniorum remained a paragon of eloquence. “Do you know the city’s name?”

“I got chased by giant crabs once. And tiny ones.” Somniorum grimaced, “I’m glad your crickets probably won’t try to eat us.” He couldn’t deny that rideable crickets sounded pretty appealing. It would be bumpy, and unless they were considerably more reinforced than the ones on Earth they probably wouldn’t last long with a human (or humanoid) on their backs, but it was fun to imagine.

It wasn’t surprising that the city’s name wasn’t easy to find out, not like there were readable records sitting around. Had to be a pain to learn to read all of that.

“I mean…it probably had a name, I have no idea. Every culture is different I guess.” He scanned the ancient city, amazed at the way it had preserved (or restored) the structures it had. “I know Tempesti figured out how to read her planet’s language, but I bet there’s a chance you could pick up the name from a memory.” The page tried to keep his face neutral as the flashes of blood his own mind had subjected him to. “The memories aren’t always nice though.” His voice was flat as he spoke, at least until Tea mentioned the presence of a museum. That was more than enough to distract him from the dark thoughts that threatened to push the rest out of the way.

And the fact that she’d found her house was remarkable, he supposed he’d never know where he’d lived in his previous life.

If he’d had one.

That was a weird thought, something to file away for later examination.

“So, what’s your favorite place here? Do you have one?” Earnest excitement colored his tone, curiosity overtaking his anxiety about possible crab monsters.

Somniorum couldn’t deny his relief at the revelation that the crickets were in fact too small to eat them. Maybe a swarm of them could if they were dedicated enough, but he had no intention of staying still long enough to find out. If they even showed up in great enough numbers.

As Tea spoke he nodded thoughtfully, though he couldn’t say what precisely the vague flashes and unpleasant sensations were trying to teach him.

Maybe to avoid bleeding too much?

Seemed like good advice at any rate.

“Yeah, yeah that would make sense. If it was trying to teach me anything hopefully it’ll make that a bit…clearer…in the future.”

But there was a museum! A space museum! Somehow it had never occurred to him that there would be museums out in these places but it only made sense. Other civilizations had to be just as curious about their own antiquities as people were on Earth.

Did they steal from each other for their museums too?

Were there space British?

“I don’t mind walking though, the exercise is nice.”

He omitted the fact that he realized he desperately needed any workouts if he was to have a chance to actually do any damage, at least until whatever magic he supposedly had decided to do anything more effective than give him a new outfit.

As they approached the museum he let out a slight, approving hum. It was unlike anything he’d seen in his admittedly limited experience, but before he could comment he found himself following his host’s gaze to a nearby statue.

“Do you have any idea what that statue is about?”

“I don’t know if I want more.” Somniorum’s throat became tighter than he would have liked. Well, any amount of tightness was more than he would prefer, but this was significantly greater. He was never one to avoid information, not usually, but this felt like the grandmother of all hornet’s nests. Like it would be far more than his mind would be able to bear if he let that in. “Whatever it is, it’s bad.”

He allowed nothing in his voice to betray more than that fact. Letting his fear push through would do nothing to help their situation and most likely unnerve his companion. “Apologies,” a faint but authentic smile replaced the anxious expression he felt vanish. “We can save that gloominess for another time.”

He cocked his head to better examine the statue, wondering how surreal it must be to see a statue of some previous incarnation of yourself. Any depiction of that subject, really. It had to be bizarre.

Beyond bizarre.

It was impossible to know how he’d respond in that situation, but it seemed unlikely that he’d find a reason to test that. Unlike a senshi, he had no built in way to know exactly who he was, and that was probably a good thing.

“Huh, that’s a good thing at least, right? I’ve heard that chibi magic is unstable.” Unstable or not, Somniorum would prefer that over a paper lantern.

“No need to apologize, you’re the expert here.” He looked around in fascination, “Do you have a favorite item? Other than the map, I mean.”