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 Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2026 1:31 pm
All Andromeda could do was run. Her heart raced, pounding painfully in her chest, her throat felt like it was closing up and making it difficult to breathe while also trying to force out an involuntary sob. No! No, you will not cry here. Even if what just happened was terrifying, and overwhelming, and so much of just everything and nothing at the same time--what even just happened? How could she even explain any of that?! Her therapist would be having a field day right now. She finally stopped at a fountain that she knew to be several blocks from where the chaos had occurred. That was weird, how did she run here so fast? However, she didn't have much time to question it before grabbing the side of the fountain and leaning down over the wall, throwing up into the water until she felt ********, she wiped her mouth with the side of her hand and turned to slide down the fountain wall until she was sitting on the ground. She breathed heavily, and her hands pressed tightly against her face. Deep inhale... hold it... exhale... completely empty your lungs. Do it again. Deep inhale... Oddly, while she struggled to bring herself back to calmness, there was a new feeling. A feeling off... wholeness. She had felt it when she said those words that the cat had told her to repeat. She couldn't call this a dream, not with the actual pain in her hand from punching that girl in the face. This was real. But despite how terrifying it was, there was a strange part of her that was oddly... Relieved? Released? Happy. Andromeda rubbed her eyes, wiping them of tears as she looked around in a daze. What now?
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Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2026 2:42 pm
Tempesti could hardly have blamed the stranger for wanting to put some distance between herself and the site of her awakening. To experience the revelation that the world was unlike anything you’d allowed yourself to believe was an overwhelming experience on a good day, that the curtains parted under the circumstances they had for the other senshi…she would need support. If she would allow it, anyway, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if the deluge of bizarre knowledge was more than she could handle right now. As important as it seemed to attend to Bacchus in the moment, this was far more urgent. Following the energy signature, the senshi of harpies wound her way through the streets until she found herself standing before her newly awakened comrade. She gave a slight wave as she approached. “Hey, I’m Sailor Tempesti…from earlier. Do you mind if I sit with you?” She briefly considered dropping her transformation, wondering if it would make the conversation feel a bit less scary before ultimately deciding that it was wiser to keep herself ready to chase off anyone who might decide to interrupt their conversation.
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Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2026 8:44 pm
She could feel the other person getting closer. What an odd feeling. To feel someone long before you see them. One arm was draped over her head and the other was folded over her knees as if creating a barrier when Tempesti showed up, with Andromeda sitting and just staring at the ground. She seemed to be toying with her own hair, likely as a method of self-soothing. When the senshi spoke up her fingers paused, and green eyes turned upward to look at the woman. She'd only seen her very briefly before running off. Why was she here? At least she seemed nicer than the other two. Andromeda's gaze fell again. " Sure," she answered quietly, almost mumbling. Her fingers resumed fiddling with her hair, wrapping segments of hair around them and typing and untying loose knots.
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2026 8:54 pm
Tempesti carefully arranged her skirts as she lowered herself onto the edge of the fountain. The other young woman was clearly by what she’d just gone through…anyone would be except perhaps those rare individuals unphased by the rush of stress hormones that accompanied anything even close to something like this. It wasn’t the first awakening, or post-awakening really, that she’d witnessed but at this point in time it certainly seemed like it had been a particularly traumatic one. She didn’t envy the trial by fire that had to come with awakening to the hostility of an eternal senshi and the stranger’s anxious motions were all too familiar. “So…how are you holding up? Is there anything I can do? I’ve got some bottled water if you’d like some.”They might be mundane questions for the circumstances, but maybe some mundanity would do her some good.
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2026 9:31 pm
Andromeda was quiet at first. Her mind was racing. How are you holding up? Confused. Excited. Terrified. Confused. Relieved. Panicked. Could she even just pick one thing? Could she even articulate any of this? She stared ahead, rubbing her lips together and curling up tighter in herself for a moment.
"I don't understand what is happening..." It was the best she could come up with.
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Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2026 10:22 pm
Tempesti nodded. The other woman’s posture, distress, confusion, they were all too familiar. It was easy to recognize herself in the frightened senshi, it hadn’t been all that long since she’d been in the same position and she still found herself baffled by some of the bizarre occurrences that had become a routine part of her life. Even the pleasant things could be as confusing as they were awe inducing. “I know…I’ve been there. It’s been…hm…just over a year and a half since my awakening and there’s always something new happening. It’s a lot, I’m not going to pretend that it isn’t, but it’s not all bad. There are a lot of other people like us around, so you’re not alone in this. If you have any questions I’d be happy to answer what I can.” Andromeda hadn’t answered her question about the water, but it couldn’t hurt to offer. The bottle materialized in her hand and she set it down between them. Just in case.
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Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2026 8:11 am
A glance was cast toward the water bottle, and for a long moment Andromeda simply stared at it. On the outside she was quiet, but inside her head was screaming. It was like her worst panic attack, but without the external drama. She felt trapped in her own head as a hundred thousand thoughts and questions rushed through her mind. Questions? She had them. But where could she even begin? Finally she reached for the bottle, mouthing a silent 'thank you' that she didn't even realize no breath for real words came out for, and opened it to take a small sip. She nursed at the bottle at first, just accepting small little sips from it before her mind finally grabbed a question out of the air. " What do you mean 'people like us'.." What even was us.
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2026 9:35 pm
The intensity of the other senshi’s distress was more than apparent to Sailor Tempesti, her panic an easily recognizable but unwelcome acquaintance. It was no wonder that it had snatched her voice from her throat. “Well…we’re senshi, you and I.” she began, trying to work out the best way to ease the woman into the idea. It would almost certainly be overwhelming, no matter how she phrased it, but avoiding it would be doing her a far greater unkindness. “I’m sure that you figured out that we have…abilities…that other people don’t. Well…” Tempesti wasn’t sure if this was the weirdest part but it certainly ranked up there, “And we get them from celestial bodies. We’re connected to them. Our souls are. Mine is a planet called Tempesti.” She frowned slightly, “We’re not aliens though, at least most of us aren’t. You met Bacchus though, he’s one of us too.” She omitted the deep space senshi’s circumstances. They weren’t exactly a topic for an already alarming conversation. “But my point is that you’ve got built in backup if you need it.” She smiled slightly, “I know it doesn’t feel like it now but you will get used to it, eventually.”
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2026 10:02 pm
Senshi. Abilities. Celestial bodies. Souls. Tempesti. Aliens. Wait. Aliens? Her face scrunched slightly as she had her internal monologue to herself, reacting as if speaking but not actually moving her lips to speak aloud. What? She's suddenly a superhero like on television? Did she not know how ******** crazy she sounded? Hi call me Andromeda I've got the soul of a ******** galaxy and I do magic and stuff. Except that was in fact what was happening. That was literally what she had seen, done, experienced. Andromeda was frowning, staring down at her bottle of water in silence. " Why?" She finally asked. Why what? Why her? Why this?
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2026 12:05 am
Tempesti sighed softly. It was a valid question, one she’d asked herself often enough, and one for which she had yet to find a satisfying answer. “I don’t know all of it, not for certain. I’m sorry.” It wasn’t the response she wanted to give and she couldn’t imagine it was the response the other senshi wanted to hear, but no amount of comforting lies about understanding the rhythm and meter of the Galaxy Cauldron’s whims would do her any good. “I have no idea how or why it chooses the things and people that it does, but what I do know that it awakens us to do what we can to protect our homes, Earth and wherever else our souls are connected.” Though Tempesti wasn’t eager to deliver news of the scarier side of their duties, leaving it unsaid would be inexcusable. “From what I sensed, you already met one of the…lovely people who are less inclined to protect. At least that’s what I understand of them. And the thing they fight for…it’s not exactly altruistic, and it wants this world…all worlds for itself.” Her hand roamed unconsciously to the glowing markings on her arms, the tangible reminder of one of the bonds for which she fought. That the execution of this desire came with the complete destruction of all life on those worlds was a conversation for a later date. “I know this is a lot to take in, why don’t you let me buy you some tea or coffee? Whatever will help settle your nerves, or at least take the edge off.”
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2026 10:54 pm
Her brow furrowed. " What is 'it'?" Fate? Did she mean ******** fate. That's crazy work. Truly. That's the s**t from movies and books and television, not real life. Andromeda inhaled deeply, setting down the bottle gently and sitting up straight. " The Hestia chick? She's crazy. This? This is also crazy. There's other worlds? I..." She rubbed her face, shaking her head. This was so much. Tea did sound nice. But wait. Tempesti was going to buy her a drink.. now? " ... Am I stuck like this?!" The realization hit her like a brick to the face. " If I want Starbucks I've gotta walk in like hey there one pumpkin spice latte for Andromeda, don't mind the dress?!" Her hands found her hair, combing her fingers through it until they were trapped and holding her scalp. " My grandparents.. my brother... what do I tell them?!"
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Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2026 12:44 am
Explaining what little she knew of the ins and outs of the afterlife had not been part of Tempesti’s plans for the day, but there was no getting around the fact that it was integral to the explanation. There was probably no way to make it sound anything less than overwhelming. “Yes…It’s well…It’s the Galaxy Cauldron. I’ve never been there, but it’s where we…where souls go after we die and it’s what sends them into new bodies.” The senshi paused for a few moments before continuing in the hopes that she wasn’t hammering too hard at any cherished religious beliefs. “I know how that sounds. But there are people who have seen it. I don’t know how many people really know how it works though. As for other worlds, there are a lot of them. I’m not sure how many of them still have people, but they’re out there. And even if there are no people left, life can come back.”Dropping her transformation was a much simpler concept than reincarnation and alien worlds and Tempesti was grateful for the shift in intensity. “Oh, no you’re not stuck like this. You just need to focus on going back for a second...” She allowed her own fuku to dissolve into the dusky purple lace sun dress she’d donned in the morning. “I’m Rowan, when I’m not Tempesti. You don’t need to show me who you are if you aren’t comfortable, people in this city have seen a lot weirder than your dress. It’s pretty, by the way.”The family question was a bit more complicated, and it had to vary from people to person, so there was no one size fits all answer, and for the moment it seemed that Andromeda needed to focus on bringing herself down from the fear that gripped her. “Try to breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth.” Rowan demonstrated, slowly drawing in air before expelling it through o-shaped lips. “Try to match my pace.”Hoping she’d given the other woman enough time to soothe herself a bit, she continued, “With your family, it depends. It took me a few months to tell mine, and I don’t know how quickly I would have told them if I didn’t have to transform in front of my sisters. They adapted surprisingly quickly, even if I get a lot more worried phone calls than I did before. A friend of mine though, he went straight to his parents as soon as it happened and they’ve all been doing their best to support him from the beginning. I guess it all comes down to what feels right for you.”She offered a gentle, reassuring smile. “If you’re not comfortable going in for a drink I can run in for you.”
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Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2026 4:29 am
A 'Galaxy Cauldron'. Souls go after we die. New bodies. Andromeda stared intently at her lap as those words replayed in her head, echoing loudly. Some else of what Tempesti was saying was almost muffled by those words. Did that mean..? Could mom and dad be-- Oh god, she felt like she was going to be sick again. Her chest heaved with a shuddered breath, her eyes becoming glassy with tears that had yet to fall. And then a familiar phrase broke through. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Andromeda gasped desperately for a moment as she fended off the impending panic attack. Green eyes darted around, locking onto things. Tree. Green leaves. Brown trunk. Building. Stone. Gray. Windows. Lights. Tall. Car. Blue. Stationary. Car. White. Moving. Dress. Purple? Wait, purple? Who was suddenly wearing a purple dress? Andromeda was still taking slow, deep breaths as she looked the other girl up and down. This was the same woman? When had she--how did she miss this? Tears finally rolled down her cheeks as she swallowed hard, pressing her lips together in a tight line. She was listening, she was okay, the tears just only had one way they could go. Sniffling, she nodded quietly as she listened to the other woman. There was no way she could tell her family. Not when she had no answers, no explanation. They already had too much to worry about themselves. Could mom and dad be..? " Sorry," Andromeda mumbled as she wiped at her face with a gloved hand. " I get those. Um. A lot. Just. Kind of always have." Deep down she knew the explanation wasn't necessary, but despite her clipped phrasing the way she said it almost sounded rehearsed, as if she'd explained it a decent number of times before. " I'm sorry how... I missed... I missed you changing. How do I do that..?" Her voice was thick and heavy with her barely restrained panic, but she was trying.
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