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 Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2026 9:34 am
Ria had been meaning to find some time to get back to her Wonder, but, between work and schoolwork and performances, it just hadn't really panned out. And now, autumn was here. Well. Technically here. Virginia, particularly these days, was a little too warm for autumn to set in just because the calendar said so. That said, from what she'd seen of Fontainebleau, it looked like Fontainebleau might have a better autumn...or at least, had much more of an autumn vibe. Plus, it needed cleaning up, if the sheer amount of autumn leaves covering the floors of the palace were anything to go by.
On top of that, the sheer amount of work necessary would provide a good excuse to ask Green Chapel if she wanted to hang out.
Thus, the night before, knowing it was a weekend, she'd sent Green Chapel a note by signet ring asking if the Earth page was down for a bit of yard work on Venus. It wasn't a particularly fun way to spend a Sunday, but hanging out would make it potentially more fun.
Green Chapel had responded by asking if she needed to bring anything, and where did she want to meet? Oh, and was there any kind of foods Ria might like?
Ria had considered that. Green Chapel, despite seeming a little younger than her, seemed very down-to-earth, appropriate, as an Earth knight, practical, responsible. That said, if Ria was going to ask her friend to help clean up her Wonder, Ria really should pay Green Chapel back for the help. She wrote back that, if Green Chapel really wanted to, she could bring some food that wouldn't need heating, and Ria could pick up some gardening supplies, snacks, and drinks. Toward that end, Ria had mixed a batch of Mexican hot chocolate, filled her available thermoses with it, put the thermoses and a small flat of water bottles into subspace, along with a box of garbage bags and a couple pairs of leather gloves, as well as a bag of tortilla chips and a container of a New Mexican style salsa. A pair of large rakes could be carried, and anything needed for future yard work could just be kept on the Wonder. Somewhere.
Thus it was that she was waiting at the reservoir, mostly abandoned for the season, glad that her page uniform was pretty good defense against the weather, waiting for Green Chapel to arrive so they could go up together.
Keesh had been busy herself, helping her cousin/new younger sister settle in, getting ready for college, and then beginning college. She hadn't really been up to her own Wonder in most of a year, a fact that niggled at the back of her mind. However, Sylvain and the Chapel would probably understand. Probably. Sometime before Halloween, she needed to drop by, find something productive to do. Or possibly just some good questions to ask, since it seemed like the signet ring hadn't been the only missing artifact. Plus, Keesh was starting to wonder about her little twig. After all, it was just a sprig of holly, but it was supposed to be a weapon. So what weapon could it be? Did it have anything to do with the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight? Was it an axe? That would be a little odd, given that the Chapel seemed to have been shaped without the woodsman's axe, and axes were usually antithetical to forests, but everything about the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was odd, so maybe an axe was, in its own warped way, a logical choice.
During one of these musings, a note had popped out of her signet, from Fontainebleau, asking if she would be down for some yard work on Venus. It was an odd request, not the most thrilling activity the girls could get up to...but it would be nice to hang out with her friend, and better to get out of her own head and back into her duties.
Grabbing a pencil, Keesh wrote back, asking if she needed to bring anything, like gardening supplies, or food, since yard work on a page's Wonder was likely to chew up the whole day. A lot of things had gone unspoken between Keesh and Fontainebleau, but she was willing to bet that the other girl was Latina, and if Keesh decided to fix something spicy for them, the Venus page could probably take it quite happily. It was probably a broad overgeneralization that might not be fair, but Keesh figured she could split the difference by muting the heat a little bit. That said, she might not be able to keep whatever she brought warm...unless she dumped it in a crock pot...but then she'd need to devote utensils and dishes to it. Nope. Better to pick something more in the vein of street food.
Fontainebleau said she'd cover drinks, snacks, and gardening supplies, if Keesh could handle food that wouldn't require heating. Which sealed the deal a bit. She'd checked what they had on hand, gone to the store to pick up a few extra ingredients, and settled down to prepare and pack some muffuletta sandwiches, some skewers of oysters en brochette, and a couple aggressively insulated Tupperware containers of maque choux prepared with hot sauce and chopped chili peppers, for a fun kick, although she did opt for milder peppers, to be safe. Packing it all away in subspace, she'd told the rest of the family she was working on an assignment at the DCU campus library, and wouldn't be home til dinner.
Her parents had been understanding, Reina...Reina was still pretty quiet and not terribly sociable. It seemed likely that, once Reina finished her homework, she would probably practice archery, play some music in her room, or play some video games in her room. Reina had said she'd be fine on her own. Keesh privately promised herself she'd try to find some way to hang out with her cousin/sister, and make sure the younger girl didn't feel unwanted.
As soon as she made sure she was ready to go, and had made sure the maque choux was properly warmed up, Keesh had headed off to the reservoir, where the two pages would meet before beaming up to Venus. Autumn was only just starting to set in, and the weather was officially Too Cool for Swimming. A couple boats were already out, probably belonging to local fishing aficionados, taking advantage of the near dead silence of an early Sunday morning in early October.
Fontainebleau was waiting behind the concession stand with a couple rakes in hand. Green Chapel waved. "Hi! Ready to go?" she asked as she reached the other girl.
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Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2026 5:35 pm
Fontainebleau grinned and waved back. "Yup! Ready to go!" She offered an elbow to the other girl, who took it, before concentrating on the abandoned autumnal palace, strewn with leaves and broken glass, but still beautiful and stately in its state of disrepair. At the heart of it, the Great Myrtle in its desiccated pool.
"I pledge my life and loyalty to Venus, and to Fontainebleau.
I humbly request your aid, so that in return I may give you mine."
A flash of light, and the girls were in the courtyard. Fontainebleau leaned on the rakes, trying to catch her breath a little. Why had it been easier the first time? Was it because she'd been alone before? It couldn't be lack of practice, last time had been her first visit. In this lifetime, anyway.
As she caught her breath, she looked around, to find her breath taken away again.
The chateau hadn't changed since her last visit, not really very much, but the page did see something she hadn't seen before: marigolds and other autumn flowers blossoming along the western side of the courtyard. Last time, the plants had all been dead. What...no...wait...hadn't other knights said something about this...?
"Ummm...Green Chapel...if I were to tell you the flowers are new...is that what people have been talking about when they were saying that a Wonder gets better with time and care?" She hadn't really been here in nearly a year. How much did just having a knight who visited at least once or twice ever help a Wonder?
Green Chapel took Fontainebleau's offered arm, and the modern Earth disappeared in a flash of incandescent light. She'd seen this before, with her cousins' homeworlds and her own Wonder, as well as Blarney's Wonder, and the Joyeuse Garde, but it was her first time coming to the Wonder of a knight associated with a different planet. Based on her cousins' homeworlds, Venus could be quite similar to Earth, aside from the lack of animal life, as Fontainebleau was still a page. Khaz's best guess was that invertebrates came back starting at second stage, which made sense for knights, as well, given that Blarney seemed to have acquired magic as a squire.
As the light faded, the Earth page looked around to find a once-magnificent husk of a chateau in a leafless autumn wood. Oh, and some autumn flowers blossoming along the western edge. No other flowers seemed to have come back, which made a kind of sense. According to her friend, she had only come once at the beginning of the year, and hadn't found the time since. If Khaz was right, and a celestial body or Wonder needed a bit of magic or energy from their protector, Fontainebleau hadn't spent enough time here to power more than small changes. Sure, Green Chapel hadn't been to her Wonder once this year, but she'd gone a few times late last year, and each occasion had felt a little bit livelier than the last. Of course, the Chapel and the "manor" "attached" to it were still overgrown forest where she might die of exposure if she didn't stay in uniform in the colder half of the year, but there had been a general sense that her presence was deeply appreciated. Maybe this chateau was happy to see its own knight back, too.
"Yeah, the Green Chapel has done some similar stuff each time I've visited, so it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility. According to Super Sailor Aberdonia, his planet's still not really habitable, but he says it's gotten better every single time he's gone, and he's been a senshi for almost two years," she explained, unlinking her arm and strolling to the edge of the pond from which arose a great tree, seemingly dead, and, even in its current state, serving as a focal point for the entire courtyard. "I think, with time, the rest of the woods around the chateau will come back to life. Aberdonia said he's even started finding insects coming back recently."
Whenever Fontainebleau came back, it was going to be gorgeous, if the architecture was anything to go by. Plus, there was what little Neit had told her from the database at the Mauvian HQ, that Venus' senshi had been the senshi of love and beauty. Just as the Wonders of Earth seemed...well...earthly and knightly, a paragon of medieval chivalry blended with an affinity for the land itself, it made sense that the Venusian Wonders had been paragons of beauty and places of and for love.
"So, where do you want to start?" she asked, gazing around the courtyard. So many places to start, even if they were just sticking to yardwork.
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