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It was a basic rule of combat that, if you were coming at someone unsuspecting with a blunt object, hoping to whack them but good, you should probably not yell out a ferocious battle cry before doing so.

In some cases, this might have alerted her enemy to her oncoming attack, giving them time and opportunity to dodge. In other cases, Astrophyllite's enemy might've been even more dangerous still, and taken this opportunity to twist around mid-strike and stick a proverbial knife between her ribs. In this case, she was lucky enough in that the particular squire she was attacking just turned toward her and let out a confused, "Aaaaah!" before the Ouija board connected with her elaborately coiffed head.

Hvergelmir stumbled backward with a hand pressed against her scalp. On the one hand, her hair was ruined -- even now she could feel the updo untwisting itself into a heavy, half-pinned, tumbling mess. On the other hand, the protective fluff of her hair had probably spared her from a worse injury at the lieutenant's hands. As it was, her head just smarted and was probably going to develop an unhappy bruise.

"Wait, stop, wait!" she called out, taking a few hasty steps back and thrusting out her free hand in a stalling gesture. "I'm not going to hurt you, stop!"

In the heat of the moment, it was far from the most convincing or clever argument she'd ever made. If it failed to forestall the young lieutenant from another attempt, Hvergelmir could probably use her magic to put some distance between them, but even that would be better than having to put up an active fight back to defend herself: it was hard to get people to listen to you once you started hitting them. Just as a general rule.

People were always really amazed by the costume -- and by the elaborate pile of hair on Hvergelmir's head. And this time, that had apparently been impressive enough to stop a lieutenant in her tracks. For once, Hvergelmir felt grateful for her overly frippy uniform instead of hindered by it. If it impressed more people into seeing her as some sort of a legitimate figure, she'd take what she could get.

"What, this? Ah, it's just hair. I don't even really know how it does that -- it just pops up there on its own every time. No worries."

She was so young and she seemed so, so incredibly frightened. It sucks and I'm not good at it. Sentiments Hvergelmir could definitely empathize with: fighting absolutely did suck and she one hundred percent wasn't good at it.

"I couldn't hurt you even if I wanted to," she promised. "See this mark on my arm? That says I swore an oath of peace. On my life I cannot harm a Negaverse officer except in self-defense. You're not fighting me, so this isn't self-defense -- so we're good, right? Truce?"

Hvergelmir grinned. "You can touch it if you want. It won't hurt you or anything. It's like one of those moving sand picture things, you know, where they put sand and glitter in water and then when you move it the glitter gets all pretty? It sort of looks like that if you press on it a little, like the glitter's moving."

She looked down at the seal, regarding it with what were, these days, mixed feelings. "I met a woman who served the Negaverse," she said, who wanted to kill me. I didn't want to fight her, I'm not trying to take over Earth -- so to prove it to her, I swore the oath I told you about. No one has to worry about me trying to hurt them, I can't. But as far as how the tattoo came about, or what it means -- how much do you know about knights and where our power comes from?"

"Oh, yeah, it's definitely magic," Hvergelmir clarified. "You can't really see it when I'm powered down, but you feel how it was like, a little warm? It's like that all the time -- like it's always there, you just can't see it."

She listened patiently as the young girl explained what she knew about knights and wonders. Not bad, compared to some Negaversers! Definitely more than enough to answer her question with.

"Wonders -- that's exactly it. Anyway, I swore my oath on my wonder -- and it holds me to it. It'll know if I try to cheat."

But the little Negaverser was sniffling now, obviously upset, and upset about Avalon. So they think she's dead, Hvergelmir thought. Good to know. And good for the actual Avalon, who wasn't dead. Safer this way, with no one looking for her. She could settle in.

She reached out tentatively to take the young girl's hand between her own and give it a soft squeeze. "I'm Hvergelmir of the Cosmos," she said gently. "What's your name, sweetie?"

For all of Astrophyllite's confusion, Hvergelmir just smiled back. She didn't even let go of Astrophyllite's hand -- just held onto it, because she knew when she felt down, brief physical contact just made her feel easily dispensed with.

"Bingo," she answered. "Lots of planets and moons and things have knights protecting Wonders there. Knights of the Cosmos are basically knights from Wonders that don't come from anywhere else, as far as I know -- they're just kind of hanging out on their own in empty space. Like, my Wonder's this little tiny floating island up in the sky, just in the middle of nowhere."

She paused, giving the small girl time to hopefully relax a little. "It's nice to meat you, Lieutenant Astrophyllite. The name Avalon's familiar to me -- in fact, I swore my oath to her. Did the two of you serve together?"

Hvergelmir nodded, frowning sympathetically at Astrophyllite's description of her history of service. Poor girl -- it sounded like she'd changed hands a few times and not been treated very well.

"I don't think I'd want Bischofite as a teacher or a general myself," she agreed, nodding with solemnity. "You know, he's the sort of person who... " She trailed off, considering her words. "Some people have a long way to go, and they're not ready to take very good care of themselves, much less anyone else. People who look out for you should be thinking about you, getting to know you and trying to figure out what's really best for you, as a person. It sounds like Avalon took a real interest in you. This new general, Natron -- you said he's just okay? Does he get to know you at all?"

For a person like Astrophyllite, who sounded like she'd had a few experiences of being abused by her superior officers, she wondered what qualified as 'he's okay.'

Hvergelmir felt conflicted. That feeling seemed to be coming up for her a lot these days: conflicted.

Hvergelmir and Kairatos were trying to watch out for Bischofite. In her opinion, he was already a bad enough case -- in his state, he'd already hit rock bottom. He needed friends. But facing this young girl, listening to her glumly disclose how he'd thrown her off a roof, then carved her up with knives while she was injured, it was hard not to feel guilty for associating with him at all. He'd been cruel to this girl, could've killed her. If it were possible for someone not to deserve good things in life, he didn't deserve them. But he'd asked her that very thing -- are there bad people? Are there people who don't deserve happiness? And she'd told him, no, people weren't inherently bad -- people could change.

(But your right to swing your fist ended at the other guy's face, didn't it? Or, in this case, the frightened young teenager's face. That much she knew.)

More than that, a part of her felt conflicted about her own reaction to Astrophyllite's description of her new general.

On the one hand, Hvergelmir was glad for this young girl, that she seemed to have finally caught a break. That her new keeper was kinder to her, trying to take care of her. That was good.

On the other hand, it would've been so much easier, she thought, to get Astrophyllite to listen to the truth about the Negaverse if she had a reason to want to listen.

That was a terrible thought to have. Hvergelmir both was and wasn't ashamed.

"I'm glad things aren't so bad as all that now, then," she said. "It sounds like Bischofite was really cruel, I'm sorry."

She offered no platitudes about his comeuppance. Hvergelmir didn't believe in karmic fate -- that the universe meted out justice and injustice. Justice was a social concept, and it was human beings who sought after it, or didn't. What had become of him had been the result of human actions and consequences, nothing more. Based on his antisocial behavior, some of them had probably been foreseeable likelihoods.

But dry statements like that were unkind to give to someone who had been abused by the man in question -- so she left them unspoken.

"When I first became a knight, I was worried I was terrible at everything, too. Actually," she said with a soft laugh, "I was! I still am pretty terrible at most things -- but my friends are good to me, and I keep trying. Have you been with the Negaverse a long time?"