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"No," said Naeria, her strong feelings about the subject pushing through her usual nerves around strangers. Her voice carried. "A living creature can not be owned."

It was getting into one of the best mushroom seasons, and time had gotten away from her when she'd gone out foraging. By the time she'd gotten around to checking on Portabella and taking care of her, the sky was dark and the streets quieting. She had thought she could go to the stable without bothering with her glamour, and how strange and wrong it made her ears feel.

That had been an incorrect calculation.

The girl- the Negaverse senshi, she noticed, lips pressing into a thin line- had walked up on her when she was halfway through lifting some hay into Portabella's trough.

She did not trust the Negaverse, but also did not want to make enemies she did not need to.

"But I do what I can to keep her safe and healthy, as she does for me."

"Friend?"

The woman's tone made her shoulders go tense and her throat feel like it was closing up. Naeria wanted to melt into the straw on the floor.

What she was saying did not make any sense. If someone did not recognize her as Aria, that was one thing, but she, as Aria, did not know who this woman was, either. Humans did not mak sense, though. She had learned that quickly. They accused for no reason, and they picked fights for no reason.

She decided to try one more time to make things right.

"Aria Amanita," she said, weakly, and had to push through a wave of something terrible to finish her sentence, "Is the one who asked me to feed her tonight."

"You?"

Naeria blinked at the woman, so self-assured and yet so incorrect. It was Gabrielle who had introduced her to Portabella. This was someone completely different.

Unless-

There was a thought there, but something glitched in her mind when she tried to think it.

Instead, she exhaled sharply when the girl called her stupid. She considered, for a moment. Then she flicked at her Comtech, and her glamour spread over her skin, starting at her wrist. It wasn't much of a change. Her skin just became tan, and her ears awkwardly shorter.

This might have been a bad idea, but she could try to program another glamour if she really needed to.

"Aria is not from the Earth," she said.

When the senshi's clothes changed, too, Aria blinked and was speechless for a long moment. Suddenly things made more sense, but also less sense at the same time.

"Gabriella," she said, when the thoughts clicked together in her head enough for her to say it. "You are in the Negaverse?"

Her face shifted into five different states of confusion, back to back. There were things she could say about the Negaverse, but if she was concerned about kindness, she did not think that she should say any of them.

"I am not angry," she said. There were other feelings, rolling around in her chest, but that was not one of them.

"But know I do not mind if other people come see Portabella."

She might have to start slowly with talking to Gabriella about concepts of ownership, if she did it at all.

"I did not know what to do when you first showed up with her," Aria admitted. "I did enough research to know that it is not safe to abandon a horse, especially here, that something called freedom would truly be death, but I also knew that I could not own a horse, I could not accept a living creature as a gift like it was a piece of clothing."

But at the same time, she had not been able to refuse because then she might reveal her identity, and then the horse might go on to be 'owned' by someone else, someone who did not have her best interest in mind.

"I talked to one of my people about it, and he reassured me that she is not my property, but that I am her friend and her teacher."

She gave Portabella's nose a gentle pat. "And, I do not believe that she is unhappy. She is always kind to me, and joyous on our runs, and she has never tried to leave."

"I am not her owner," Aria insisted. This was something that she was not going to budge on. "But I am glad you think she is happy."

As if to prove a point, Portabella pushed her velvet nose into Aria's long-fingered hand and let out a contented snort as Aria scratched her a few times. As Aria pulled away, she took a few bites of the fresh hay that had been laid out for her.

"If you want to ride as a senshi, you should," she told Gabriella. She did not know much about princesses, but she had worn skirts a few times, and she understood how it felt nice when they fluttered around your legs.

"I have time now. I could ride with you."

She let her own glamour drop and stood, obviously alien, once again.