#ark closed

Having listened to the answer to his inquiry of where the best stargazing places were here, Kaito had found making his way across the sandbars of the main transportation hub a bit of slow-going thanks to the water frequently getting his slippers wet (he’d eventually just come to a compromise and carried them in his left hand) - but he’d eventually made his way to one of those numerous small remote islands he had been told of. Wow...so little light pollution out here did indeed make for an amazing view. The calming sound of the sea lapping around the islands: he’d definitely haveta take his sidekicks here to make good on his promise to ‘help them see the real stars some day’. Sighing in a rare moment of quiet contentment - stargazing being the only time he stopped energetically bounding about, to properly appreciate his passion - he slowly lowered himself to sit, then lie down with his arms behind his head. Nothing but the wonders of starlit space above: or at least so he thought, until he heard strange noises that seemed to be...nothing familiar or anything he’d heard before. Wah? Some kind of alien?! Jerking back up to his sitting position, he scanned around. “Yo, I come in peace? Not gonna hurt nobody, if yer hidin’, come on out!” The matter of his stargazing could wait a moment, potential aliens were of prior importance!! (Okay, so that weird noise could have been ANYTHING and maybe not an alien but he was hopeful!)

Exploration hadn’t been Luke’s thing for some time.  He’d gone to Ahch-To specifically because it was isolated and people “exploring” wouldn’t happen upon him as easily.  Circumstances demanded it though.  He’d learned from locals that the Sea of Crises (where he’d awoken) was one of three locations.  Not a one of them had been able to tell him anything else useful, mind.  Every time he asked ‘Where, Force damn it, am I?’ the strange rats had just dodged the subject and moved on.  It didn’t seem like a conscious choice, but he had no functional telepathy to prove that theory.

And so after many an exasperated questioning of the odd rat people, he’d departed to the Sea of Nectar.  The sight that greeted him was decidedly more fitting of the label of ‘sea’ than the broken nightmare he’d awoke in.  Sandy islands as far as the eye could see with oceans gorgeous enough to make Scarif pale by comparison.  Whoever was behind all of this had... varied design tastes, to be sure.  As he stepped off the train, the ever-present sun vaguely reminded him of home.  Sure, there was one less sun than he was accustomed to, but the way it beat down on him was familiar all the same.

As he made his way down from the train platform he began to sense something.  Something equally familiar but also not.  He tried to probe at the feeling, to expand on its nagging on his mind.  It was for naught, though.  Looking about he immediately noticed that the locals here were in fact not rats.  They were anthropomorphized tropical birds of varying colors and plumage.  Among all the color Luke stuck out like a cranky, sore thumb in his drab tan-and-grey Jedi robes.  A few of the locals tried to strike up a conversation with him but found the Jedi lost interest when they couldn’t answer his questions.

Luke was ready to move on when he spotted something in the crowd.  A human, and a large one at that.  He studied the man’s face from afar.  It was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.  The haircut, clean shave, and general body language suggested military of some sort.  Luke’s brow furled as he racked his brain for minutes before it dawned on him.  He came up with nothing but a vague sense of familiarity.  Luke tried probing out with the Force, focusing it in on the individual in question. He felt an even stronger resistance when he tried, though he couldn’t ascertain if it was a conscious defense or not. 

Normally Luke would wait and observe.  If there was anything the Jedi had taught him it was that acting rashly was a fool’s idea.  Usually sound advice, but the situation was anything but usual.  And so it was that he began aggressively wading through the crowd of birds like a man possessed.  The locals may not have answers, but the only human he’d seen in nearly a full day just might.

With the fact that he probably (most likely) was not in ‘heaven’ firmly put in mind, despite overhearing The Sea of Crises being the most spooky and unnerving place - h-he, Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars, was not scared! If he wanted to take notes about this new place to share with his sidekicks to help out: he had to explore all this places areas. The ominous landmarks, mazes you could get lost in and nobody would hear ya scream probably... N-no, he wasn’t scared! There wasn’t nothing wrong with this place! Nope! The rats scurrying about didn’t have him unsettled at all, nor did anything else: nor did the sound of someone stepping out from the shadows behind him! ...Wait, what. What WAS THAT LAST ONE?! OH DEAR GODS A GHOST?! “D-don’t eat me! I taste bad, my hair’s all purple and dyed and junk!”

The weather today was something that - attempts of cooking that went very badly with local ingredients aside - had the Luminary of the Stars staring in wide-eyed, almost childish wonder and rushing out - the forest floor covered in what seemed a dream-like white carpet that crunched more satisfyingly than autumn leaves under his slippers. “Whoa-hoho! Snow, snow! Look, it’s snow!” Hey, yeah, he knew he was a teenager and shouldn’t be acting like an excited kid at the sight of snow, but it had never really fallen much where he grew up.

He’d always been excited about it and the thought of seeing it, and this time (unlike...the last time that really didn’t end the best) it was real snow: though it sure was cold without his jacket! Still, he felt too excited to really let the cold get too much to him, cheering a little and running around, scattering pieces of the white carpet everywhere in his wake. After a few moments, he figured that seeing as this snow might be a rare thing, he should totally do something EVERYONE did when it snowed: and make a snowman. So he began rolling a little ball of snow about, though stopped at a pink-tinged sorta figure who seemed to shimmer and looked very fitting in the white. “Heyaa. Did ya come ta make snowmen too? You almost look like a snow angel yaself, actually!”

A cheery laugh.  ...Forgive Kaito, he really doesn’t know that the being he’s talking to actually IS an angel and isn’t just someone in costume.

Today seemed to be just a normal, everyday, average day in the giant tree which those in Lampadias called home: like any other. The breeze flowing by, the local non-citizen animals going about their business, the smell of something really weird that no words could describe in the air: wait, no, the last thing in that sentence wasn’t normal at all. There was also a boisterous singing: or at least attempts of singing - from the fifth floor and one of the doors wide open.

The source of the strangeness? It was the local Luminary of the Stars, which probably wouldn’t surprise people that actually knew him. Being an astronaut and admirer of the stars, it was important that he did his best to eat healthy and hearty meals: okay, so the ingredients he could actually get were kinda strange given he was on another planet and stuff, but a real explorer made do with what they had! Besides, at very least he had a fail-safe item to cook in case the first lunch attempt went really bad. Though, he knew having his front door open while cooking probably was making the neighbors befuddled, so he shouted out loud enough so his voice carried: “Jus’ tryin’ ta not make my kitchen smell weird with all this cookin, nothing wrong here!” 

(....It certainly didn’t SMELL like nothing was wrong there. Oh boy.)

No weapons, but she supposes that doesn’t matter so much. Every weapon in the base is left in the lockers, to prevent accidental discharges by the easily startled. She’s had more than one occasion where she’s had to fight off a typhon with nothing more than her hands and her wits. She’s still alive.

She curls up on the bed, then, and pulls out the phone. The contact list looks useful, but she wasn’t good at cold-calling even back when the cellular towers were up and functioning- texting was more in her skillset. So she opens the app that looks like a knock-off of an old-world dating site. Kindling flashes on the screen. The joke doesn’t escape her, and she snorts softly to herself.

The basic questions are all the same. Age? 32. Looking for? Unimportant. Maybe she’ll change that later- for now, she needs all of her options open. There’s no question pertaining to location or hometown, interestingly, so she puts it in the description. Russian. Interested in learning more about you. About this place, she doesn’t write. It reads like some ‘Russian women love [insert nationality] men’ clickbait, but it’ll do, for now.

She takes a while making sure her picture looks... decent. She can’t get rid of how tired she looks, the bags under her eyes, the faint lines formed where her cheeks meet her mouth, but she knows damn well she’s a handsome woman. She never would have gotten Morgan’s attention all those years ago, if she weren’t. It ends up looking serious, but a little more friendly than she thinks she usually looks. More open. It makes her uncomfortable to look at herself that way, so she submits it so she won’t have to anymore.

Then she gets to work. She doesn’t swipe right on everyone she sees, but people who look strong, world-weary, people who look like they know what they’re doing. People who would be useful allies.

She sits up too fast and winces. For a moment while she glances around she thinks this might be some kind of hospital or like, recovery center, but the giant actual aquarium wall negates that thought instantly. It is way fucking cool. No hospital with Jesus-loving nurses would be this fucking cool.

The phone on the nightstand is clearly not hers but she immediately starts going through it anyway. It says some really bizarre stuff. To be fair, she also said some really bizarre stuff while dripping bile everywhere and sort of concussing Venus, probably, and all of that was completely true. Weird isn’t wrong. The devil knows that.

Neptune doesn’t hear it anymore, but the memory of its voice is warm and delicious, honeyed. She knows the devil. It’s her, and it’s something else out there, something that held her in its arms in that instant of blinding light and raging winds before she faded into the darkness. 

The universe paradoxically feels much safer with the devil in it. If it’s the worst thing out there, why should Neptune be afraid of this? She leans against the weird cold glass wall of the room and looks out into the ocean, out at all the even weirder sea things that swim and balloon and jet by. It’s nice. They probably fucking love the devil; the devil doesn’t think that even the weirdest dumbest ocean worms have a grand purpose in the universe. They just are.

Neptune wants to just be, too. Without anyone telling her to be someone else.