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Homesick - that was how he'd come to describe how it felt to be away from here for too long.

At first, his wonder was just a novelty that came with his new life on the 'other side.' He didn't think much of it; he was busy trying to figure out his new identity and provide a new normalcy for himself and his then-husband. Then said husband became ex-husband, and he was left to pick up the pieces alone. he left Destiny City with no plan. being without an income and living off of ill-gotten funds demanded frugality. It was dangerous to do what he did, powering up outside DC, but he made sure to do so in the most remote of places. Still, the crushingly nauseating miasma of Chaos that he felt when he did was warning enough that he had to do some with extreme cautiousness. His power signature would only be there for the shortest blip of time as he's power up and go to his wonder and stay for....as long as the supplies would let him.

It was then that Hawara became his sanctuary.

A far cry from what it was thousands of years ago, the grounds were sand and mud. the building that he supposed was the main structure of his wonder looked fair enough from the outside - a bit crumbly, but the windows didn't look like they'd ever held any glass, save for the large round one up top. The foundation of the building was slightly elevated, and the mud around it had been enough for him to conclude that there had once been water there. It sounded right - something in him simply knew that this place had been built atop an oasis. it had been a special one. So special that long ago Hawara had been constructed over it. He couldn't say how he knew, he simply did.

Although things looked fair enough on the outside, inside had been another story. Crumbling staircases, tattered curtains, debris everywhere. And that was just what he'd first seen. As he spent more time exploring the destruction that was revealed cause his brow to crease more and more. There was a hurt and anger in his heart that sat coldly beside that hurt and anger he had already been experiencing.

Cleaning had been something that he started as a distraction from his pain. At least, that was what he'd told himself. If he couldn't clean up the mess his life was on earth, then he could at least try to clean this place up. As if it were a physical manifestation of the emotional and mental anguish he held within him. He'd had visions here and there - memories of a past that he'd once lived. Sometimes they made sense and related to what he was doing. Sometimes they seemed to be a hint at what he needed to do. Other times they were completely nonsensical to the current matter.

This carried on for a long time as he continued his road trip, counting down the days until he could return.

Eventually he'd notice changes - not just from his own cleanup and repair efforts. The more he poured in to his wonder and sussing out its secrets and discovering who he was, the more it seemed to....pull itself together. Piles of swept up debris would disappear - that crack in the door frame would vanish. All out of his site. The repair happened whether he was there to do it or not. He's find himself pondering this in a more metaphorical sense, as he was prone to do. He did a lot of thinking there.

It wasn't missed on him how the once violent winds that threw sand inside and everywhere had gentled with time. The ground beneath the building and in the courtyard seemed to get muddier. pathways that had been blocked got cleaned up, and he could explore further. It was like playing a game and after collecting enough EXP, getting to level up and unlock new content. and eventually he had unlocked the biggest game changer of all.

The Lock Box Library.

Rooms at Hawara seldom had real doors. Curtains, drapery, and beads, yes, but actual doors? that was a the first thing that struck him as odd. And this door was pretty big, however it matched the one downstairs that was also on the same wall. That one he knew, led to an empty square room, which then led to a maze. He figured ll that would be right below the room this door led to, actually. He tried the knob of the door and it opened. What met him was a large room with rows and rows of shelves. there was a large circular window - the only one he'd seen that actually had glass in its metal frame, although many of the odd geometric panels seemed to have been broken out. The room was filthy, and as he ran his hand over one of the shelves, that is when the memory played out before him like a short film.

So, this place and the maze room were connected? Made sense.

He picked up one of the boxes on a random shelf as he'd seen the him in the vision do and looked it over. It didn't seem all that special. Then again, the young page in that memory hadn't thought so either.

That was when another memory began, and the past vision of himself walked past him, box in hand. He turned and followed. They went down the stairs and to the room that led to the maze. He didn't notice that he still had the lock box in hand until the vision was done and played out. Did... Did this place want him to do what he'd just seen his past self do? hesitantly and incredulously he did so, placing the lock box on the pedestal of this 'safe room' as it has been described. Then he said the words;

"Look in this heart and find me - All I am, surrendered"

The doorway that led to the maze glowed and once that glow died down he walked towards it, opened it, and what had before been just a weird maze was something.....different. No longer a simple maze, the room beyond was transformed in to a physical manifestation of his mental landscape, his anxieties, his fears, his perceived failings, his anger... A mess of feelings turned in to a virtual reality puzzle game he had to resolve. It was...terrifying. It could have been considered traumatizing if not for the fact that it was actually working him through his trauma. The jumbled emotions and feelings in his heart and mind were laid out and untangled from one another, sorted in to more manageable boxes that he could figure out how to deal with....

That was the beginning of a whole new journey of self discovery and healing, and something he would do many times after, despite how momentarily disturbing the experience had been - the clarity and peace afterwards was.... Wonderful.

The more he did this, the more he noticed the ground in the courtyard fill with water. He was sure the entire oasis must have been fed from some deep well and the groundwater within. Again, he would ponder the more metaphorical meaning of this - the deep well of emotions within him that had been drained of anything good and life-giving. The more he sorted his inner turmoil and grief, the more strength he found to feel things like excitement and such positive emotions. The more alive he felt. And the more the oasis filled.

Every time he would visit would be not just for cleaning and repairing the wonder, but repairing himself and his broken psyche, emotions, spirit... Until finally he found himself whole again. For the most part. And the more whole he became, the more whole the Wonder became.


Would he have felt so bonded to his wonder if not for the trauma and emotional turmoil he had been in before hand? It was a pointless question, because that isn't how it worked out. In the end, he had been incredibly broken, and he had sought his wonder as refuge, and together the two had come together and healed one another. Heck, he couldn't even be mad at his past self for the crude prank about his uniform. Sure, he had always thought his uniform, upon purification, to be a bit plain compared to other knights, but he just figured that had been the hand he was dealt. Then the wonder shared with him a memory of his past self, incredibly prankster and Puck-ish figure that he was, sealing away parts of his uniform in a different type of Lock Box.

'Something for the next knight to do!'

Well, karma was a b***h because he just played himself. Surely the past Hawara knight hadn't expected to be reborn and resume his role, or he wouldn't have done that.

Well, fair play and all - he finally had unlocked all the pieces. Life was coming back to his wonder, even if it was just bugs for now, and he was at peace with himself. Even his other home on Earth - things were good there. Wonderful even. He had never experienced such comfort and happiness, such ease and contentment. There was no reason for him to need to seek sanctuary in his wonder, because he finally had everything he needed back on Earth. But still, this place called to him, made him homesick in a way that was indescribable.

Homesick not just for this place, but for a home he had never experienced. Nostalgic for a time he'd never lived in this current life. And sometimes he felt like he was chasing that feeling - doing everything he could on Earth to get as close to it as possible. Recreating a life he didn't know, but felt deep in his starseed. There was a certain kind of agony there in not being able to grasp those familiar comforts. being here, at his wonder, made that hurt...not go away, but fee lighter. He knew in his heart there were things he was missing that he'd never get to experience in their full glory again - the bustling life of a Uranian marketplace, the visitors that used to come here looking for the same emotional or mental solace that he'd found, the mischief, the fun, the politics, the rituals....

From the bags he brought with him for this trip in particular the got out the pool net that he had refashioned for a particular purpose. regular nets could not do what he needed, so the net was replaced with a fabric that would let just the water through. With the net and a bucket in hand, he walked over to the open courtyard in the center of the building, where the heart of the oasis glistened in the sun. Or well, it would have, if not for the iridescent sheen of billions upon billions of dead sparkly gnats that floated on top of it. With a resigned yet not unhappy sigh, he got to work, clearing the dead bugs from the water's surface until he was left with a mostly-clear pool, and a bucket full of 'organic glitter.'

When he had first noticed bugs, he had been stupidly excited. To think that life could return to this place, even so small, provided a warm hopeful feeling in his chest. Back then, a memory of his past self creating 'glitter big bombs' (by catching a bunch of the little things in a sphere similar to a loose-leaf tea ball strainer then dipping them into the frigid water of the oasis) had played, and he could only shake his head and smile as the vision faded away, and his mischievous past self disappeared. That had been a couple visits ago. he hadn't tried it himself yet, but thought it might be a fun thing to try out next time he brought Mocona.

Maybe together they could also figure out that kitchen. He was reading up on how old brick ovens worked and how to use them, but then there was what he gathered was some sort of cooking surface. There was a small recess in the 'countertop', on top of which had been, before he cleared it out, some rubble and rust that hadn't been magically cleaned away. He thought he might have had a small epiphany about it the other day when he was de-winterizing the grills at the camp. He made notes to take measurements to see if he could find any grill tops that he could fit over the recess. And buy some charcoal. Even if it wasn't quite Ye Olde Intention for the cook top, he found little harm in trying. Maybe while doing so he'd be given another memory that would help clarify things. This trip though, he was testing out if what he gathered was a cold box could, indeed, keep ice for any decent length of time. It was located in the pantry area - a sunken part of the floor, with a door over it. It was slightly moist, probably because, if he were to guess, it was actually submerged in the cold waters that sat beneath the entire building. He'd check before he left to see how the bags of ice were fairing. However, that wouldn't be for some time. He intended to spend quite a bit of time here today, for he knew how badly he'd miss it when he had to go back....

He sat the half-full bucket aside, and went about other general cleaning before finally going up to the library. Well, they called it a library, even though the shelves were lined with rows of lock boxes, rather than books. However, like books, there was knowledge to be found within. Sometime treasures. The translucent fabric that wrapped around him and the train of his vest that followed behind him, and even the shoes he now wore were testament to that. Maybe one day he'd figure out how magically getting items in to the lock boxes worked.... Though first he'd have to figure out how they worked in general. As it was now, he simply trusted the magic and his own impulses and hunches.

That said, when he entered, and saw a glowing light down one of the many rows of shelves, he knew now that meant that there was a lock box that needed attention. He knew his past self had only created four for him to find, and the other six had only reacted when he'd had some strong inner turmoil that needed sorting. Now? He was at peace, so why the glowing box?

He picked it up curiously, turning it this way and that.

"A question for me?"

Usually it was him asking the questions. And he couldn't say why he got the feeling it was something asking him a question this time, but...

"Then ask, and I'll answer as best I can..."

It was then that something new, something different, happened when he said those words. He was transported automatically to the safe room of the labyrinth. Hawara took a moment to get his bearings and register where he was. With some caution, he placed to lock box on the pedestal. The door to the labyrinth glowed and shifted, and then he opened it, not knowing what awaited him beyond.