Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had been so long.

So long since a meteor shower had streaked the night above Bacchus.

The suffocating grey of the Bacchanalian sky had only shifted in depth, barely enough to mark the passing of the hours. An expanse of endless grey nothing unpierced by any merciful glow that might have given some comfort in the silent centuries.

It was all he could do to keep from sinking to the ground, allowing himself to sink into the uncharacteristic wonder he’d refused to feel, secure as he was in the knowledge that nothing lasted long enough to make it worth the wasted emotion. Still, the strange lights above invited him to slip through that stubborn barrier, if his reluctant mind could be persuaded.

One of the various videos that had made their way across the screen of his phone had told him that these weren’t actually stars, had nothing to do with the souls of the dead in their journey through the branches of the sky. But still, he couldn’t be entirely certain of that. Humans hadn’t even fully mastered space travel. They were ignorant or in complete denial about the existence of magic, something the entire rest of the galaxy had managed to grasp. How could they know that all of them were space debris? He nodded to himself, satisfied at least in the ambiguity he knew remained.

They couldn’t take that from him.

A mirthless chuckle escaped his throat, it made little difference whether the gods were dead or never lived, the end result was the same and at least some of the souls had escaped before Chaos denied them that freedom. A wave of guilt shuddered through the senshi’s body as the worst parts of him hoped that it might have the ability to hold them in place. At least until he would have more time to prepare for the possibility that he might have to face them here.

Maybe another millennium or two.

The thought made him feel

Bacchus sighed and craned his neck skyward in the hopes that he could let these stars chase away the gloomy thoughts, at least that was his intention before another distraction presented itself in the form of a friendly energy signature.

Scanning the area, he found himself pleasantly surprised by the sight of a familiar face. With a wave he gave a shout to Sailor Lovas, “Hey!” He trotted over to the other deep space senshi, gesturing widely in the general direction of the sky. “So…this!” Maybe he was a bit more at a loss for words than he’d realized. It was a strange sensation, certainly, unusual for him to say the very least. Maybe it would be worth it to sit and watch for a while. It would be easier with company, at least. Were he willing to focus on the notion long enough to acknowledge it, he might admit that he appreciated the idea of watching this bizarre phenomenon with someone else who’d experienced something similar to what he had. With a hint of a smile he sank to the ground, face upturned.

It felt odd, the reminder that people knew about these things ahead of time, he supposed it made sense. Only a dead people ceased marking the time as it passed, and even if it frequently shared more heat and moisture than the deep space senshi would have preferred, Earth still had a sky to watch. That alone was more worth celebrating than the planet’s natives knew. He snorted, briefly aware of the grizzled elder his thoughts channeled, and thoroughly relieved that no one else was aware of

“I…no, I just…found this.” Rowan had mentioned it in passing, but for all her best efforts, his friend’s comments on the positive aspects of summer in Destiny City did occasionally get lost in her more colorful descriptions of the galline encounters she’d had the previous year. She’d probably say that it was a good thing to let himself find pleasant surprises. “It’s a happy coincidence.” He grinned at his companion, yeah it was nice to have someone else there.

Changed?

It felt like a strange question, considering the circumstances. He changed by the day, by the hour.

“I guess I do,” he didn’t talk about the empty places where his power once flowed, or the creeping obligation everything seemed determined to drag forward. “It’s ******** weird. Going through a magical adolescence again. I was supposed to be done with this!” Despite his complaints, his voice lacked bitterness as he leaned dramatically backward into the grass.