Welcome to Gaia! ::

The good thing was that Daphne had something to focus on now, which had broken through some of the grief-stricken slump that had taken over her life for the past several months. The hard part was that the first part of this project was getting the Chaos off of her world, and that seemed close enough to impossible that she didn't know where to start with it.

All she could think of to do was to keep trying to get stronger, and to keep making more connections, so with that in mind, she'd been going out to patrol, as some of the others called it, nearly every night.

Many of the nights had been quiet, though. She hadn't seen Retzian any more. She hadn't seen many people at all, only a few smallish youma.

The Eternal aura was welcome, and when she followed it and saw familiar face and the outfit with its bold colors standing out against the black, she offered a warm smile.

"Alastor!" she called out. "I've been hoping that I'd run into you. I bought you a present."

She was grateful enough to him that she didn't think a simple thank you would be enough.

"I have been busy," she said, and she seemed proud of it, her tail swishing back and forth behind her more energetically than it had in months. "So much has happened, even in just a few weeks, but, oh! Presents first."

She was dying to tell him about all of it, but he was curious, and she wasn't going to keep him waiting.

"Here," she told him, and she summoned the present from subspace.

The pendant of the necklace was in a mandala design, inspired by the patterns she'd seen tucked into his sleeves, and on his world. She hadn't studied them enough to know if she was getting the exact right shape to match, so she'd gone for one inspired by a flower.

There had been flowers carved into the base of his candles, and those she had been able to look at for longer.

She held it out, dangling by the chain.

"Thank you for being so kind to me," she told him.

She hoped that she'd been right that he liked beautiful things.

He liked it! That brought a smile to Daphne's face, and behind her, her tail gave a satisfied little swish. She'd picked it out carefully, since he deserved something in exchange for the candles he'd made.

"Bittersweet," she told him, because it wasn't like she could honestly say that everything was, as the Earth saying went, sunshine and rainbows. "But, it's been an improvement on just bitter."

For a long time, things had just been very, very bitter.

"There was this woman, an agent, actually?" Which seemed strange to admit, "Although she told me she was going to leave the Negaverse? But I was talking to her about how I was trying to plan a funeral, and she bought me a memorial stone for my family. I lit one of the candles for them, there. Talked to my father."

It had been bittersweet, certainly, but a look of peace crossed Daphne's face as she spoke of it, all the same.

"They deserve to be mourned. I'm realizing that."

She glanced to Alastor's face, and then to the sky.

"What I really want, though, is to be able to do it properly, in the Daphnean way."

"I will need help," said Daphne, and then she went quiet for a longer moment, the ticking of her tail behind her slowing to something more thoughtful. This was something that she hadn't talked about at all yet with another living person, just ghosts and memories.

"I'm not going to be able to do anything about that with the Chaos the way it is. I have to stop it first." She looked over at him, her icy eyes bright. "And, I will stop it."

Which was all good in theory, but the moment of determination only lasted so long. Daphne's shoulders lowered somewhat. Her tail stilled, and she looked over to the side, back to being an overwhelmed teenager.

"I don't even know where to start with that, though," she admitted.

"The radars," said Daphne quietly, her eyes flicking to the ground while her pale cheeks flushed a few shades of pink. She remembered those. She remembered how it had started screaming at her while she'd been clinging to the ghost of her father.

She remembered throwing it against the wall with all her strength and finding the cracked shell of it afterwards.

"I might have destroyed one of those," she said, still not looking up.

"That night,everyone else was being so heroic. I-" she hesitated. "I gave in. I didn't fight. It showed me my father, and I stayed with him, and even after the illusions were destroyed, I was going to bring the Chaos crystal here so that I could make it look like him again. Soleiyu had to stop me."

She breathed.

"I can get technology. I can get allies, but I have to make sure that I'm strong enough, too."

Daphne tensed slightly when he said that he hoped she wasn't guilty, her tail stopping mid-swish to stay stiff and perfectly still behind her. "Of course I'm guilty," she said, still sounding very annoyed at herself about the whole thing. "I could have messed everything up for you because I was being selfish. It's not an excuse that there was Chaos around. There's going to be Chaos around. I have to learn to deal with it if I'm going to be helpful to myself or anyone else instead of being in the way."

Since her graveside meditation, and her decision to do whatever she could for her world and her loved ones, this was something that had been on her mind.

"I might take you up sometime on the offer for training, though. Do you know how to fight?"

Given the rumors she'd heard about the world of Alastor, it seemed a safe bet.

"My training's all in diplomacy and politics, but I think that's only going to get me so far in this day and age, and anyway," she rolled her shoulders back. "I like to stay active."

She'd been trying, and that had gotten her to Super, but clearly she needed more.

Daphne's catlike eyes widened, just slightly, the pupils looking slightly bigger as her lips twitched thoughtfully. "You've never lost a fight?" she asked.

He'd been alive for a thousand years, awake for all of it, and he'd never lost once. It was impressive, and Daphne couldn't take it as anything other than a challenge. She had the biggest smile on her face that Alastor had probably seen from her yet as she said, "Then I'm going to have to train very hard to beat you."

Just as seriously, she added, "I took one class on the very basics, something about community self defense? So we would be able to skip that, but anything more advanced you have to pay for."

While dealing with everything, it had been tempting at times to give up on life, which meant Daphne hadn't bothered trying to wrap her head around Earth's awful capitalistic system, or getting a job. That was something else she was probably going to have to do soon.

"That sounds good, though. Next time we can spar."

With effort, Daphne managed to internalize the eye roll at the thought that she wouldn't know how to warm up or take care of herself. She cold go for a run before they sparred. That should do it.

"I'll be ready," she told him. Maybe she could look up some tricks on the Internet in the meantime, see if she could skip some of the easiest lessons. He had a thousand years on her, so she was going to have to be smart about it.

"For now I should probably get going, but I'll text you when I'm free, okay?" she said.

She was turning to leave, but she turned back just long enough to say, "And thanks again. For everything."