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There was a deep-set, flickering fear in Pendour's heart that never quite went away. It was getting better as Sadie. She'd been past the bed-bound depression for months. She went out to buy food now, and sometimes even to see friends, and she would look people in the eye when they stared at her scars.

It was harder as Pendour, which was strange. There was a lot she liked about being powered. She felt less blind, feeling auras slide around her own. She liked the way that she felt stronger in her own skin. She loved the way that she could hear Neptune calling to her on the right nights if she only took the time to listen. She wasn't sure if all that was worth being attacked brutally whenever anybody had the chance, or sucked into a bottle dimension where she had been killed. Where she'd died.

That was what was bothering her the most, lately. It was something she couldn't just shake, or even get much support for.

She kept coming out mostly for her wonder, but she knew that there were things for her to do on Earth. She knew that she wasn't the only broken one wandering the city. There were people much worse off, and if her wonder was any hint, there were a few ways that she might be able to help them. She did want to spread the peace that she could with the time she had left.

For that, she needed to practice. That was how Pendour ended up back outside, curled up on a park bench and playing on her ocarina. Her ancestor had hinted that she'd needed more practice, so she'd been slowly learning. She'd moved on from her elementary school three note tunes to Jolly Sailor Bold, although she did still have a printout of the tabs for it on her lap.

Pendour was mostly focused on her music with just enough of her mind focused on auras to make sure that nobody from the Negaverse ended up at her back. There were things that she was figuring out that needed to be tried out, not just read about, like the way that she needed more breath for the high notes and less for the low. She was getting past the worst of the squeaking.

In any case, she didn't think much of the nearby aura, even strong as it was, bright as bright, until she heard someone speaking right next to. Then she smiled, soft and grateful, as she let the ocarina drop, and she turned to see him. "Thank you."

Pendour had a prosthetic, too, and she wore it, despite the way it made her feel like something was off. Looking at the empty socket was hard, too, but on days when she didn't look in a mirror, it seemed easier than trying to make something acrylic and lifeless a part of her. She wore it mostly because the doctor had told her it would help prevent infection and further damage and she couldn't explain to him that it wasn't going to protect her from what she was facing. It didn't hide the violent scars that stretched from below her socket halfway across her forehead. She was still trying to break the habit of pulling her hair over it at the sight of anyone and she smoothed a stray curl behind her ear instead.

The man in front of her was a senshi. He was an Eternal, with the buttwings like Encke. As she went for eye contact, she saw the patch. She looked at it silently for a full second, not slack-jawed staring but not doing the other thing either, where she looked away too quickly. There was a sinking feeling in her chest. This was four. Four people with one eye, if she was reading this right, with the two of them, the other knight, and the screaming man in the hospital. It was an epidemic, almost. She tried to keep from jumping to conclusions.

"Can I ask you a question?"

Pendour had never been one for too much eye contact under the best of circumstances, and in this case it just seemed like far too much. She moved on after her inspection of the patch to find something else to look at, and settled on his bracers with the lovely crystals on them, and she tilted her head to admire them better. It was harder to tell what a senshi was meant to be. Knights had the symbols that she'd memorized, and usually heaps of bones or stars or something on top of that, but with the senshi it was only bits and pieces. Something solid for this one, maybe. Something from the earth.

She nodded at the permission, but ran her thumb over her ocarina three times before she replied. "Um, have you seen a man who looks like a wolf?" She looked quickly towards his face again, sincere. "Not all the way. Eyes. Ears. Teeth."

Was she making sense if he wasn't another victim of the man? She was trying not to be too harsh in case he was. "As strong as you, but with the Negaverse." Was there a word for that, like with the knights? It occurred to her that she was still painfully under informed.

"Yeah."

The admission hit her hard, sending a wave of heat up her face and behind her eyes. She hadn't really talked about it besides the vague half-truths told to her family the night it happened. She found herself shaking from saying it out loud, and taking a deep breath as the heat pooled into tears to try to keep from sobbing in front of this kind stranger. When she wiped at her eyes, she reminded herself to be grateful to her body for trying to calm her, but she didn't want to upset him, or scare him off.

"It's okay," she said, her voice settling. "It's good, actually. I was worried he might be going around and marking people." It did make her wonder what had happened to him if it hadn't been this general, but that was his story to tell. She kept running her thumb up and down her ocarina. It was smooth enough to calm her. "He was about as broken as someone can be. Sadistic. I think he would do something like that. I'm glad he didn't get you. I'm sorry about the other lady." She still had her eyes on his arms, where she noticed a lot of other scars. It made her wonder how many people were out there, waiting to hurt.

She saw the way he stood by the back of the bench and offered a glossy-eyed smile. "You can sit down," she said. She wouldn't have to twist around so much to see him, then. "I'm Pendour, of Neptune."

His hand was warm. It wasn’t soft, really, but that was okay. She liked that about him, the same way that she liked his voice, for all that he seemed like he couldn’t go more than a few seconds without swearing. It made him feel real. She reached up to put her hand on top of his, in turn, softly and just for a moment, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles instead of her instrument as she took her next breath.

Then, she turned to logic. “Well, they’re conditioned,” she said, easily enough. This was what she thought about on her sleepless nights sometimes. “They’re given family like bonds and a place of belonging to fight for. They’re punished for going against anything, and I can see how being all twisted up like that, half youma? Would be terrible, would make you lash out.”

It didn’t make it okay. It didn’t mean she could forgive them.

“It’s still sad. Sorry, like sorrow, you know?” She smiled, although that was sad, too, her brows knitted and her good eye still suspiciously red around the edges.

It was easier to smile when he sat down and she turned so she could see him, sitting cross legged on the bench. Eurydike, that’s pretty, she thought, but it was really the next sentence that made her smile widen and her eyes go a better kind of bright. “You know, or, um, you’re married to a Neptune knight?” That was a happier thread connecting them than the eyes, and it left her interested in the husband, too. “I’ve barely met any others.”

Pendour gave herself one more moment for sadness, to let the universal apology wash over her like a wave hitting shore. Feeling things was supposed to keep them from building up inside of her too much, but she didn't cry again. She eased into the smile, which was easier as they moved on to happier things.

Neptune knights, for example. She pressed her palms together in front of her mouth, her smile ever growing. "Oh, that's lovely! I don't think congratulations would be the right word at this point, um," she began, then trailed off into silence for a few long seconds, tilting her head as she tried to sift through terms. "You're a lucky man, maybe?" That one did presume a few things about this husband that she hadn't met.

She shrugged, rolling her shoulders back as she did so. "I'd love to meet him. You could mention me, and I could write him a letter?" Her love for Neptune was deep as its seas, and its knights didn't seem too common. The ability to maybe meet one was an exciting concept for Pendour, playdate planning or no.

She then looked over to Eurydike, putting the effort into making eye contact. "Well, you're the one who's here now," she said, her voice steadier but just as warm. "We could be friends." She was stone serious until she wasn't, and then she laughed, a light breathy sound. "Okay, I heard it that time."