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 Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2026 1:15 pm
Lovas' ability to read Earthan text was improving, despite being generally lacking- likely in part because there were few things to read that struck him as interesting? Everyone in his home had a different favorite genre. Fantasy, romance, history, fiction or not. And such things held Lovas' attention for... not long enough to help him definitively grasp the written language. The most interesting thing was his own experience, after all! Anything he could read in a book paled in comparison.
Regal believed that not everything in a book was to be read for entertainment. Sometimes it was nice to just absorb information for the sake of knowledge!
Lovas disagreed. Knowledge was boring.
And so what he had found to be of interest were these cute little introductory posts that he didn't really know how he got to- a little clickable square on his Senshi phone. And there were lots of posts! Most made by names he didn't recognize and wasn't sure he could pronounce. But if he looked for long enough, he could find someone who could do just about anything (useful, as he really had only one skill, himself). Healers, adventurers, scientists, hobbyists.
What had brought him out this time was a post that spoke to both Lovas, and his housemate, Regal.
Regal did not speak often of his impressions of the 'other side' or how easy or difficult it was to find his way back, but he was, at his core, someone who did not want to abandon his allies to fester in solitude. Which was how Lovas ended up at his house long-term.
It mattered little when and where they met to Lovas, but Regal was very opinionated about being somewhere no one would see or feel them. A Knight, a Squire, and a Senshi? Their little group would be a beacon for trouble if they didn't keep their guard up... The location he settled on was the sort of place you'd commit a murder, or hide a body. A little wooded area about a half-mile hike out behind the gas station farthest out of town.
And Regal made sure he and Lovas Ubered to to nearest fast food, walked the block to the gas station (without going inside- or being noticed in any regard), and then hiked (inconspicuously) out through the trees. No one was going to see them. No one was going to find them. And if Maus ended up not wanting to come, it was at least good exercise.
"...Are you going to hoard the cheeseburgers the whole night..." Lovas grumbled, eyeing the brown paper sack from the fast food place that had to be... miles away by this point. He reached-
Much too slowly for Regal to not snatch the bag out of his grasp. "I'm not hoarding! They're for everyone, and if I let you go at it, they'll be gone before your new friend even gets here. Just be patient."
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Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2026 3:18 pm
Their new friend, as he'd been deemed, had apparently circumvented as much trouble as possible by simply waiting til the last minute to power up, as the energy signature sparked into life quite nearby and immediately commenced an approach. Maus would keep to himself what a pain in the a** it had been to get out here. He understood the paranoia - shared it - and was quite willing to accommodate, even though it had required a chunk of Uber fare he frankly couldn't afford and a hell of a hot walk on the heels of a week that already had too much walking in it. It was only partly this polite determination and primarily his genuine sense of goodwill that had the Knight arriving, not with grumbling or even uncertainty, but with a comfortable, sunbright smile turned to Lovas and Regal as soon as he was close enough to deliver it. New friend seemed suddenly very apt, as despite his apparent age - hard to gauge, however, with a face that flitted between the years - he had the open-hearted, unashamed demeanor of the kind of child who announces “we're friends now” to a playfellow they've only just met. “I wish you'd said something,” he said by way of a cheerful greeting. “I'd have brought drinks or dessert, or something.” He was already putting out his hand for firm and friendly handshakes all around. “Might have some vodka kicking around in subspace if you wanna spike something, though. Thanks for coming out. Been a hell of a time rooting people out to talk to.”
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Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2026 1:35 pm
"No, no need at all," Regal said, dismissing Maus' thought that he should've brought something. "These are apology cheeseburgers," he explained, offering the brown paper sack to the other with a meek little smile of his own. "I know it must've been terribly inconvenient to come so far out just to ask a few questions. I didn't want to run the risk of all of us being together attracting unwanted parties..." And maybe it wasn't that likely of an occurrence. He didn't hear that often of anyone succumbing to the Negaverse- whether by choice or force. But it didn't matter how often it happened. That it happened at all was enough reason for concern and enough to make Regal very wary. Lovas shared exactly zero of his concern, and his large, hulking frame was already sweeping past Regal's more modest figure to snatch up Maus' offered hand. His own answering grin was wide and fanged and lit with eagerness, clearly ready to abandon the snacks he'd been thinking of only ten seconds earlier. But in his defense, it was always exciting to meet humans who could extrapolate on things he didn't understand particularly well: like how anyone could be so ******** stupid as to allow themselves to get tangled up in Chaos and stay there for a prolonged period of time? Lovas might have tried to needle it out of Regal, but he was... not an enthusiastic sharer about Those Times. The Handshake was not a greeting the people of his planet had partaken in, but Lovas understood the gist well enough, giving a firm and yet somewhat mechanical shake as he made very intense and pointed and bright-eyes-beaming eye contact with the Knight. "I am Lovas," And with a little tip of his head to indicate the Squire next to him. "This is Regal. Thank you for meeting us so. Incredibly. Far. out of the way! We'll make it worth your while." If Regal looked mildly exasperated, he did his best to hide it, though he was certainly less energetic and more soft spoken than the Senshi from Space with him. "...Sure. Anyway, feel free to help yourself, and we'll only take up as much of your time as you want us to."
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Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2026 7:13 pm
Maus, who made it a rule to never turn down free food, accordingly helped himself. He spoke at a rapid clip, and it was possibly more rapid than usual so that he could cram everything he wanted to say in reply into the space of time it took to unwrap a burger and get it situated, so as to be spared having to talk with his mouth full. "Try not to think less of me," he said - and although he had a certain laidback quality, there was a certain suggestion in his voice and his movement that his energy levels might be nearer Lovas than Regal - "that I don't even know exactly what it is that I've come to talk about. The long and short of it is that I've made some friends recently and it's made me realize that all the stuff we have to get people settled into new lives is stuff for knights and senshi - not so much stuff for John and Jack down at the bar, you know? "But obviously there's that whole pesky secrecy thing -" and more with these two than most, it seemed likely, "- so I've been trying to ask around if anyone has any ideas about civ-side networking. So we don't have to pretend to be fake people when we want to hang out and eat a burger," he finished, unable to longer resist doing just that. Appropriate to his name, he ate in swift little bites, with an alertness that suggested he was afraid someone might come and take it from him at any moment.
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 6:23 pm
Regal's expression was thoughtful; brow a little pursed, a curled finger tucked beneath his chin, head canted slightly toward the ground. "I'm not sure I completely understand," he admitted. "Are you asking how to... make friends?" "With civilians, specifically," Lovas added, bright-eyed and incredulous, as if he could barely understand why anyone would want to 'network' with people who couldn't know about him as he was. -Which he didn't. He hung out as a civilian exactly never (well, maybe he had once or twice with Alexi, but that was just because this planet wasn't ready for him in all his glory), and he wasn't interested in changing that. But as Regal mulled over what Maus was actually asking, the thought that started forming made it... more understandable, to some degree. "Ah... Are those the memories that were most affected when you purified? Your civilian memories?" It hadn't been so for him. Nearly everything about Nobleite and the Negaverse was gone, but Micah and his family and his friends- that was all still there. He still knew who he was, and he had left Chaos specifically because of the ties he had as a civilian. Not because of anything his powered identity gave him. ...And not because of the 'good or evil' he could do, either, as shameful as that was to admit. It had been easy enough for him to fall back into very similar circles to what he'd had before he'd been powered at all. But maybe he could understand how it would be much more difficult for someone who'd forgotten much more about themselves. "And what have you been hearing from the people you've been asking?" Regal asked.
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Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 1:36 pm
"No, no," he said, waving a hand. It was always awkward doing this. He was finding that there was a strange sense of taboo in simply speaking clearly, and it was one of those things he was going to have to overcome. He tried to speak more plainly. " Making friends is easy." This, with the careless certainty of somehow for whom this had always been true and had a hard time imagining that it could be difficult for anyone else. "And I have plenty of civilian friends. It's just that every time I talk to them I have to wade through this minefield of inventing a backstory for myself. They'll never ******** know that it's all just - just so much bullshit." He paused. There was a certain irony in this being the goal closest to his heart right now. Maybe when he'd made a vow to stop pretending to be other people just to make the days more interesting, he'd set himself up for this sort of thing. It had probably been easier Before, when he was reinventing himself for every new acquaintance as a hobby, rather than out of necessity. "I want people like us - people who had to make a new life for ourselves on Earth and new identities, for whichever reason it is - to start making more efforts to hang out together, but not - like - not powered up. In our civilian lives. There's all these festivals and get-togethers for us to hang out, but we're all incognito as Senshi or Knights and I just - I don't know. Maybe I don't want to be a Knight all the ******** time, but I also don't want to have to spend all that other time around people who can't possibly understand who or what I am. You know?" He asked this last in a sort of desperation, prepared too make another run at it if he was still failing to express himself. That was the damned trick of the entire thing: to express himself in that other life, as a liar with a fake history and a fake personality, was easy. He simply had no practice, in this life or the other one Before, in saying what he was actually thinking. Besides, if he had to clarify any more he would have to put words around the dreadful core of the issue: he was lonely. He spent all day around other people, floating easily from one social circle to another, and he was more desperately lonely than he could have thought it was possible to be for an accustomed liar like himself. "So what other people have been saying is - well. No one trusts each other," he said, distressed at how simple the truth was. "Everyone thinks it's too risky to just go handing out civilian names willy-nilly even to our allies, and probably it is. I thought maybe if we didn't say who we are - just that we can be in a room and all of us can know what we are, and we don't have to introduce ourselves as anything but our civilian names - it might be OK. But I think even that's a bridge too far for most people. Maybe it's - maybe it's different for you. You have each other," he conceded, unable to keep the faintest twinge of envy out of his voice. "Maybe it's not worth the risk to you. That's why I'm asking. I don't know whether it's worth the risk to most people."
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Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2026 3:13 pm
Their situations were... not identical. Regal had his husband and daughter, and they knew him well. Knew everything about him. Perhaps more than he knew about himself, given what he'd had to give up to go back to his life with them. Both of them were enthusiastic about their alter identities; maybe even too much for Regal's tastes. But because he had them and because of their various networks, Regal could be an accessory to nearly anything either of them did. Thaddeus went to his husband's work functions. His daughter's PTA meetings and softball practices. He interacted with civilians regularly, and those interactions were very close to being himself. Not exactly, but close. He didn't make up a handful of bullshit every time he interacted with normal people; he would say he stuck religiously to a rather strict script. Something that was almost in line with the person Micah was. With omittances enough so that the people who had known Micah (there were several- such was what came with trying to fill the same slot a past version of him had vacated) would not be too suspicious of Thaddeus. There was a certain stress to it. Some of those people had been his personal friends before. And to them, he was a stranger trying to take the place of someone they'd cared about. Thad hadn't realized he could miss people right in front of him. People who had loved Micah, but definitely thought poorly of Thad. He still thought of them as friends. Maybe naively. But Maus was right: they couldn't know him in the ways that would make them close again. Maybe that was especially disappointing because he would go so far as to say that he didn't want to be a Knight ever. Regal would give it up if that meant things could go back to how they were, if he could be Micah again. Unfortunately, instead, giving it up would just mean severing a connection to the only people he had left, so... It wasn't really an option, even if it was possible. This war had hurt him more than it had ever helped him. Regal knew of people who found purpose in their powers, joy and camaraderie and a calling for something more. But that wasn't how he felt about it. To him, it was something that had ruined what he'd considered an almost perfect life. He'd been happy- and he was happy now, he was happy now! He still had his husband and his daughter! It was just more complicated now, too... "I... think I understand." There were pieces of them missing, and all the other various parts that were still there needed to be hidden at some time or another. He'd been Thaddeus for years, but even that person was still barely an individual. Still just "Elias' husband," or "Teyla's father." At least he had those tethers. Maus didn't even have that. And it did always feel particularly risky. He barely wanted to be his own person because he didn't want to appear anywhere of the Negaverse's radar. He'd been there as Micah, a civilian, and it had <******** everything up. He couldn't risk Thaddeus or Regal being relevant in any way to almost anyone he didn't know nearly everything about because if he became tangled up with an agent again, he'd be killed. Maybe that didn't matter. Eli would be killed. Teyla would be killed. And yet... He was a softy at heart... And there were a few risks he could convince himself to take because he thought maybe the benefit to someone else outweighed the risk to himself. Which was the only reason Lovas lived with his family at all. (Lovas', who did not look like he understood at all, and was looking at them with something like a confused smile that had some little edge of distaste to it. Because unlike Regal, who didn't want to be a Knight, Lovas did not want to be a civilian- or no, Regal thought. Maybe it wasn't 'didn't want to,' maybe it was more accurately 'didn't know how to.' He hadn't been anything but Lovas for a thousand years. Hadn't interacted with anyone in nearly just as long. There was nothing left of whoever he'd been before he'd been a Senshi). Regardless. Lovas' was with him because Regal thought if he could do nothing else, he could help him. Maybe he could help Maus too. Even if it was a bit risky. He reached for his space pocket, tearing open the threads of reality to retrieve a scrap of lined notebook paper, scraggly around the edges, and a thick, green crayola marker. He scribbled something quickly, folded it in half once and then blotted the insignia of his knight ring with the marker (it definitely was not tasteful or elegant or anything of the sort, but these supplies were plentiful, convenient, and worked perfectly fine). He stamped his ring to the paper, and dismissed it. "That's me," he said, indicating with the back end of the marker the completely nonsense (if not somewhat useful) message of method sending. "My phone number. You can text me if you'd like. For group things, or whatever else. My name is Thaddeus. ...It was Micah before everything." "I don't know if it's worth the risk to most people," he admitted with a small shrug, fingers wringing around the marker sheepishly. "I think there are many who are satisfied with the bonds they have as Senshi or Knights and think maybe the civilian connections don't matter as much. But I have heard... at least once or twice of people who are having a lot of trouble acclimating. Maybe the risk is worth it to them."
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Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2026 11:14 am
If he was learning anything from the pursuit of this half-formed idea of his - besides the names of other people - it was that he had it in him to set aside his paranoia long enough to reciprocate when others set aside theirs. It was with barely a hitch, then, that he followed suit, reaching into subspace and procuring, not a piece of paper, but a blank postage label and a Sharpie, which he accordingly began putting to use, his handwriting an angular, pleasant, mixed-case style that spoke very clearly of someone who had at some point done a great deal of graffiti. "Morgan," he said. "Or Kay, if you prefer it. I go by both, at this point." He did not give his name Before. Maybe he'd only forgotten to, in the confusion of his double names. That was certainly the impression he meant to give, anyway. "You can text me too," he added, swapping the Sharpie for an acrylic marker and following suit with his own signet ring, which was apparently the heraldic shape of a rat in an unpleasant sort of paroxysm, perhaps suggesting it had been poisoned. "With anything. So can you," he added, with a bright smile to Lovas, despite the Senshi hanging back from the proceedings. He could not empathize, but he could understand that these lost fragments of a dead planet might have different feelings than himself, and he didn't push it. "Thank you," he added, with a simple, almost childish sincerity. "I know that it's asking a lot. But I hope I can make it worth it somehow."
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