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07/06

Joy generally met the idea of visitors to the Garde with somewhat checkered feelings. She liked to be seen, as it were, as the Queen of her Castle; she liked to hear voices and feel how different the place was with some life in it beyond her own. But at the same time there was, always, the sense that she was diminishing the value of some beautiful secret by sharing it.

Her feelings this time were less checkered than usual, and not exactly for the positive. There was no mitigating sense of pride or even friendship this time, and she still wasn't sure how she felt about the Vanguard, really, beyond a vague sense of pity - an emotion she was at this point thoroughly sick of indulging.

She waited at the appointed meeting spot, carefully balancing a plastic clamshell with a tiny birthday cake in one hand, but despite both this and the cheerful smile she was forcing, this was nothing but business. Rhysi, put bluntly, unsettled her. But still, she did not like to owe someone a favor, and if she could make it equal - or better yet, tip the debt in her favor - she would do so upfront. Rhysi wanted to examine her Wonder, and this made sense to Joy, who was mentally composing questions for Rhysi’s boss as she waited and considering the warped similarity between their current missions: one trying to save his world, and one trying to save a very small world, for just one person. Let her come, then, and do her Star Trekky business all over the place, if it did her any good. If she wasn’t exactly going to be one for a lot of gossip, at least she wouldn’t be talking her ear off, either.

"Yes," she said, choosing to meet brevity with brevity. She handed her the cake as she said it, with a decided lack of celebration.

"I'll light the candle for you if you want, once we're over there. Happy Birthday," she said, and, unaware of the fact that her timekeeping skills were being scrutinized, she unfortunately added: "Belatedly."

There was a corresponding lack of ceremony as she whisked them away, taking in a lungful - as she usually did - of clean air that smelled like water and green things. They arrived atop the crumbled remnants of a curtain wall, and Joy - who normally at this point looked at her visitors expectantly, to bask in their expressions of delight - did not bother, as she assumed no expressions of delight would be forthcoming, that welcoming smile of Rhysi's notwithstanding.

They were met - and this, too, was as it should be and always was - by the spectral presence that seemed to be always lurking, and who went through the perfunctory pantomime of pretending to kiss his protege's hand with detached formality, all the while raising his eyebrows as Joy made her hasty introductions: Gouvernail, Rhysi. Rhysi, Gouvernail.

"Rhysi is here to learn some things. She’s trying to save her world," she said, with a tight little smile, and when his eyes wandered to the cake she added: "It was her birthday, but she was busy saving the world that time, too, so I got her a cake.”

“Many happy returns,” he said, from an obvious bewilderment at what else he ought to say in the wake of this little dump of exposition. This was forgivable - Joy had promised him a Cosmos Knight and he was getting something that was neither that nor even a senshi - but she glossed over acknowledging it.

Please, oh please, be too distracted by the ******** cake to try and Star Trek the ******** dead man.

It had somehow not occurred to her that someone might be unprepared for a ghost. This had become so natural and expected a part of Wonder interactions on her own part - and she was so accustomed to knowing less than the person she was standing next to - that it had entirely slipped her mind that not everyone knew about these things. It would have made her feel bad, if she was given to feeling bad about that kind of thing in general.

Gouvernail submitted to the scanning with a stony dignity that told Joy that she was going to Hear About This Later, and she inwardly sighed, grateful to turn away from him - and peremptorily dismiss him from being further required with a vague wave of her hand, at which he seemed to more or less be absorbed by the scenery and vanish - by being forced, in common politeness, to answer Rhysi questions.

This, however, she did very inadequately. “I didn’t bring a geologist,” she said drily. “We got some rocks, some dirt, and some bigger rocks. Maybe some sand kicking around, if you look hard enough.” And then, helpfully: “Do you need a shovel? I could get you a shovel.”

The place certainly seemed more lively than it had when she'd first had visitors. Dead man notwithstanding, there was the shrill background hum of cicadas, and the occasional noise of birds - making her early addition of windchimes feel almost unnecessary. There was also a distant noise that sounded like it might be several dogs excitedly barking at once, which was coming nearer as they spoke.

Something that vaguely resembled the usual joyful owner-and-dog reunion occurred, although with the nightmarish aura of being witnessed from within the haze of a particularly unpleasant hallucinogen. There was, at least, a great deal of affection on both sides - this might actually have made it worse, somehow - and a great deal of shushing of the inefficient number of mouths, all of which seemed set on delivering tongue and slobber in disturbing abundance.

Joy had to lift her voice over a cacophony of noise to be heard, the shushing for the moment being inefficient, although it was mercifully curtailed by an explosive fit of what could only be called zoomies. The thing moved with a surprising agility for an animal that looked like it was assembled from a bin of leftover parts.

"She'd probably be more willing for scanning than he was. Especially if you scratch her forehead," she observed mildly, eyeing the device with some suspicion and not specifying which forehead this was meant to refer to. "What does it even scan for exactly? What are you testing for? Surely dirt's just dirt, right."

Joy had done very well in school. High school science class in rural Kentucky had not exactly, however, given her a glimpse into the nuances of geological research.

She was tempted to ask which ones, but she was aware that this was an urge born not of genuine curiosity in Rhysi's work but of a childish urge to needle her monosyllable replies with a constant stream of "but why" questions. She therefore wrestled it down, with difficulty.

Pal delivered Rhysi the blessing of an ecstatic and very wet sneeze - the effect being something like a cursed shower due to the multitude of snouts - before bolting off for more zoomies.

"Can I show you anything in particular?" she asked. And then, against the better angels of her nature, she could not help adding: "If you're looking for trace elements, last week when I was here I found what I'm pretty sure was the old garderobe. Gotta be traces of all kinds of - well, I was gonna say s**t, but you know. All kinda things. I've just been using a bush. It's like going camping," she finished cheerfully.

Joy was not at all unmotivated to comply. There was obviously something interesting in a medieval toilet - metaphorically in, or possibly literally in - and up til now the interest had been effectively squashed and made into an aghast retreat by its initial discovery being made with the toilet's presumed former owner lurking over her shoulder. Perhaps a toilet is only of interest when it is an abstract artifact.

Rhysi was led through the keep, past open archways into rooms filled with debris, with nothing at all, and in one instance with the antlers and bones and skins of a truly shocking number of dead animals. The staircases were narrow, but at least not falling apart.

“Ta-da,” she said, almost proudly gesturing at the garderobe. “You can see right down to the ground,” she added helpfully, indicating the seat. “Quite a splash, you'd think. What if it was windy, can you imagine? I guess there was a cesspit down there but it's all just swampy moat-y stuff now. Let's not go there.”

Science often finds a toilet useful. Chemistry and archeology alike have a great affinity for the privy. It was with a very genuine sense of having been Helpful that Joy therefore beamed.

It occurred to her that she might be seeding some interesting and wildly wrong generalizations in Rhysi’s mind. This had the added bonus of being funny.

She experienced a momentary pang of what came suspiciously close to envy as she considered the lack of anything especially exciting to show Rhysi as compared to what she herself had seen. Maybe the grandeur of Earth - a sort of amor patriae she was always a bit prone to - had its drawbacks.

But then again, perhaps Rhysi had never seen any Earth creature more exotic than what Destiny City had to offer. This was a burst of optimism short-lived, gone by the time Joy had shown her back down to the bailey, as she realized that the Garde itself hadn't manifested anything more interesting than a ghost and questing beast already catalogued.

“Well,” she said ruefully and a little lamely. “There's bees, I guess.”

But she was running her eyes over the little courtyard as she said it. “Oh. Those are new, I guess.” This, pointing towards a little cluster of lizards in several colors swarming over a patch of stone wall. She added, wrinkling her nose: “Stuff just kinda… shows up. I don't know how it works. It was just bugs and stuff for ages.” She eyed Rhysi's device and added, with a dire tone that indicated her lack of optimism: “Do you know how it works?”

It would be nice to know - if not for the sake of keeping a reckless (albeit half joking) promise about seagulls, then at least so she could try and steer away from, for example, wasps.

She was quite willing to believe that Rhysi was, in fact, already more knowledgeable than herself, at least as far as it pertained to rocks and pollinators.

They rambled a bit over the rest of the bailey, and then down along the pebbled riverside. She did not offer Rhysi a spot in the boat, nor in fact did she even allude to its existence. She was willing to be hospitable, but friendly was asking a little much.

With a bit of inward hysteria she considered whether she ought to have gotten Nail to figure out how to play happy birthday on the lute. The mental image of him attempting to stern-facedly serenade the blank-eyed monosyllabic Rhysi, who in the vivid picture was singing the single line over and over and badly off-key to his accompaniment, at least kept a smile on her face as she played the gracious host, although it was the occasional coughing smile of someone choking back laughter.

When they arrived back at the ruined gatehouse, Joy - deciding that Rhysi required more active stewardship in this respect - promptly clapped her hands like a queen summoning a passel of servants. Having none of these, she was forced to procure her own lighter and a candle from subspace.

"Let's have birthday cake," she said, decisively. "I didn't think to bring any balloons, sorry. I'm not sure Pal wouldn't try to eat them." She added, very graciously: "Thank you for helping me out with your boss."