Welcome to Gaia! ::

"So I'm finally gonna get to meet this Pendour, hmm?"

Encke had mentioned to those who had been at the house that he was meeting up with Pendour, and he wondered in retrospect if it had been a mistake. Luke had given him a few leftovers that he had tucked away in his subspace pocket, and that was fine, but Viatrix overheard the name Pendour and had decided she was tired of not personally knowing this person Encke mentioned so often. She had slipped out of the house behind Encke, hopped on his shoulders, and very insistently told him that she was coming.

And, well, he couldn't get rid of her, so instead, he relegated himself to the easy response of, "Don't make me regret not bringing you back to the house, alright?" Encke pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a little quiet sigh as he sensed the knight aura -- oh, Pendour was already there -- and picked up his pace a bit.

"Excuse you." Viatrix papped him in the cheek with her paw for good measure.
"I'm always nice."

"And yet you just smacked me."

"Hardly. And because you implied I'd be mean--"

Encke shushed her, cleared his throat, and came into sight of Pendour with a friendly wave. "Pendour! Told Dad I was coming out here and he gave me a few snacks to give you if you wanted -- oh, what's in the bag?"

As he slowed his steps, he offered, wryly, "Oh, and this cat on my shoulders is Viatrix. She's my guardian cat, as it turns out."

"Hi!"

Encke noticed the vaguely worried expression more than he noticed the muffins, honestly, and he couldn't help glancing to the Mauvian who had made herself at home on his shoulders himself for a moment, hoping that today wouldn't be the day that she decided to be, well, too much.

Fortunately, Viatrix was moreso enthusiastic about muffins than inclined to attack anyone on the side of Order. "Oh I love muffins," she careened forward a bit, catching herself by planting her claws squarely into Encke's shirt and sniffing at the air. "Do you know what flavor they are?"

Honestly, though, she liked any flavor of muffin. As long as they weren't like, oyster flavored. Gross.

Encke, naturally, tried his best to keep the minute wince off his face when he felt Viatrix shift just a bit farther forward than he would have appreciated. He instead opted to lift her up himself and shift her a bit so she wasn't giving him unwelcomed acupuncture. "I'm looking forward to a good picnic on your wonder." His lips lifted into a grin. "Have you been to your wonder recently?"

There was a part of him that deeply hoped she was seeing what several people he had talked to had seen...

Pendour didn't quite seem comfortable.

Encke had noticed the way she wasn't quite gazing at them directly and found himself wondering what was wrong. Considering there were only a few things that were different from their usual meetings, it helped him cut down the possibilities. Was it because they had been attacked by Jet recently? Was it because of everything else that was happening? Had she met up with any of the other aliens recently? Or was it... he found himself glancing at Viatrix, definitely a new guest to their picnics, eyeing her for another moment as she eagerly leaned a bit further in.

"Oh, I love banana!" she honestly loved almost every muffin combination, but she showed her enthusiasm for it anyway, leaning a bit further forward in Encke's grasp. "Oh, and you have a brother who likes baking too? Well, Encke doesn't have a brother who likes baking." She paused, glancing toward him. "Well, you kinda do. Gabe inherited his love of baking from Dad, right?"

The most intense thing Viatrix was doing was babbling, honestly.

Talking to Encke directly instead of to Encke and Viatrix seemed to ease back some of the way Pendour was acting. Ah. So it was Viatrix. She was new to their picnics. Perhaps that had something to do with it -- her comments distracted him, and he found himself in a strange mix of disappointment--not with her, but with the lack of life--and excited when she said her garden was thriving. Had what had swept over most planets not swept over her wonder?

... It didn't matter, either way. Pendour's wonder was beautiful no matter what. He eagerly took her hand. "I'm glad to hear your garden's thriving. Maybe that's the life your wonder is supposed to have, right? A beautiful, lush cove." He grinned. "And I'm eager to see it again. Ready when you are."

"I'm excited to see it too!" chirped Viatrix.

Encke laughed quietly as they landed on Pendour. "Blame Basi. He has a lot of brothers." He paused, before adding, as an addendum, "And one sister."

Three brothers, one sister. Part of the reason why the house was as big as it was; Safira and Luke had needed to move into a place that would actually support all of them--

"Suppose Luke and Safira could be blamed for that too, considering--"

Viatrix was distracted by the lush sounds immediately, and she let out a loud, "Oooh!" that interrupted Encke's musings. He glanced toward her with a quirked brow as she decided to wiggle her butt, calibrate, and decide not to leap off Encke's shoulder for now. It was clear she wanted to look around, but Pendour was quietly warning her about the person Encke was giving his own sort of sideways glance toward--

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Encke shot Pendour a grin. "I can already see where your plants are thriving even more."

"Oh, you have an ancestor, right," Viatrix seemed thoughtful about this -- Basiluzzo didn't, after all, and that was the knight she was overall most familiar with. "I won't threaten to eat his toes, Mauvian's Promise."

Toes were disgusting, anyway. Why would she want to eat something that nasty from a nasty man--

Encke's dry, "What does he want?" was probably indicative of his opinion of Irving.

Encke's eyebrow quirk was light, and while he didn't say anything that was intended to start anything with anyone, the look he was giving Irving--especially considering the way he made Pendour shrink--was one that clearly wasn't fond.

Supportively, Encke squeezed her hand back.

It was at the same time Viatrix lifted a paw and waved, of all things.

Not here to lecture? If he was entirely not there to lecture, Irving wouldn't have bothered bringing up something that had clearly worked. Encke would ask about this person who purified later; was it that captain who had mentioned knowing her? "Seems that what she wants is helping this place," was said with a charismatic wink. He saw the growth even from this distance, could hear the water flowing -- and there was something else in the cove? Irving didn't exactly seem bothered by it, so it was probably nothing bad. What could it have been, then? Some more growth, maybe?

"Well, he gets to see it all the time," chirped Viatrix, wiggling her butt again and this time opting to actually hop off Encke's shoulders. While she didn't go too far ahead, she did start ahead of the three of them, turning back toward them and wiggling where a tail would have been in eagerness. "So there's gotta be something cool there, right?"

Maybe her enthusiasm was misplaced, but almost anything about homeworlds had her excited.

Encke squeezed Pendour's hand reassuringly again. "Should probably go see what he's talking about."

Encke let out a quiet sigh of relief at Pendour's returned squeeze and Irving's not-quite-quick-enough exit back onto his perch, his shoulders relaxing as he followed Pendour toward the cove.

His eyes lit up in recognition when she named 'Geocronite', and he nodded as she said she spoke to him -- matched with what he had said to him, honestly -- and he, unlike Irving, thought that what she had done was a good idea. Geocronite, unless he was playing an intensive long con, had proven himself to be trustworthy. It was clear he wanted to leave the Negaverse, and it sounded like the Negaverse had gotten wind of that, too. "I know him. We ran into each other in the park and he asked about my transcendence, a bit. Mentioned you too. I'm glad to hear he made it out."

"Ohh, Cosmos," Viatrix said it in a way that was almost dreamy. "I haven't gotten a chance to see her in person but Encke has! You're lucky!"

"Not sure if I'd call it lucky," Encke had felt stunned and awed when he had met Cosmos each time, but each time had also come with something either bad or something someone needed to be rescued from. They had needed to be saved from the Negaverse. Stillwaterite had to be saved from Chaos-- "I feel like her involvement probably means fixing something that went wrong, mostly."

Though it would be nice to actually talk to her in a situation that wasn't so dire, he never actually expected that to happen. She was busy. Too busy. And he'd feel bad pulling her from that just to ask some questions--

"Hey, gardens aren't a bad thing to get distracted with!" Viatrix sounded a bit prideful, herself. "Encke's got a whole thing going at his gardens. I might've helped him with some of those irrigation systems."

Encke's eyeroll was playful. "I'd love to see how your gardens are coming along after we figure out what's over this way." He took in a deep breath himself, letting the smell of the cove fill his nostrils and ease any of his worries. It was always so nice on Pendour. Encke closed his eyes, held his breath for a second, and then let it out just as slowly.

Encke flexed, responding with a bright, "Perhaps we just have good timing."

Viatrix beamed back at Pendour, bouncing in her excitement as she sat herself nearby the water. "Look, I'm happy to spread some luck around," even if she wasn't necessarily the lucky one herself, she was Encke's bonded, so that counted well enough, right? Viatrix seemed content where she was. She wasn't about to go the water -- didn't like how her fur felt when it was soaked, considering just how much fur she had -- but she was very happy to look at it from this small distance away.

"Drombeg of Earth," repeated Encke back, making note of the new name and making a note to watch out for him if he was out and about. "It is nice to see purification happen, right? It reaffirms that we're right -- that there is freedom from this, and we can use that to show more of the Negaverse there's freedom from this, I hope."

"Well," Viatrix scrunched her nose, "so long as the Negaverse doesn't use that to go after anyone who left."

Encke had waded into the water himself after hiking up his pants and putting his boots to the side, looking around for what Irving might have been pointing out. "That is the unfortunate flip-side of that." Nothing seemed off. He held his breath for a moment and peeked under the water, looking around to see if he noticed anything off... No... He came back to the surface with a gasp, before asking Pendour, "Do you think there might be something down further?"