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He seemed tired for a moment, and lost, and Scylla couldn't stop her hand reaching out from under the cloak he'd loaned her. Her cheeks were pinked from the small compliment he'd offered- she wasn't sure that she was kind, but she tried. She also needed a new manicure after this fight, she noted idly as she pressed her hand to his arm. "I think they'll be proud you survived without breaking." it was all she had to offer him, unfortunately.

But he seemed startled by the intergalactic equivalent of forty, and she blinked purple eyes at him, considering. "Old enough to know better and sometimes too young to care?" her answer was a question, and she said it with a wry smile. "Torn between maturity and adventure. You sound like you were quite a troublemaker a few centuries ago." Jada was teasing him a bit, and hoped it wasn't clear. "I think the average lifespan now is about 85? A little more for a woman, less for a man, and of course dependent on many factors."

Her lips pursed. "So when do you want to go on another adventure?" she asked curiously. "The park can't be that fun, after being trapped in it for so long. Oh!" that reminded her- she reached into the pocket of her sash, tugging out the energy crystal he'd given her, offering it out to him, as she did every week. "I almost forgot to give this to you this week." She still relied on it to tire her and help her sleep. Still needed the aid when so much man-made medicine had failed to stop the nightmares or tire her past caring.

Scylla watched with open interest as he began to drain the energy she offered, a corner of her mind eager for the distraction from the growing ache in her body. Heavy, fresh weariness that made her limbs feel fat and twitchy, her head weigh two or three times what it usually did. Tonight, she didn't think she would need Caedus' gift to help her rest, but she would need to remember to take it with her when she left.

"But are you having much of an adventure are you when you stay in this park all the time? No petting zoo, no baby goats, no free Wi-Fi or coffee? No view from the mountains of Tibet, no skydiving." Scylla countered with a little grin. "You're kind of stuck with stray cats, stray senshi, and ducking the negaverse- which I guess the latter can be an adventure. Though you probably know when a branch moves, so it probably helps the safety." but he was being unusually open, and sincere, and Jada considered the insight he offered, her nose scrunching as she stared up at the sky.

"My family is considered upper class," she said after a while, "and my youth was somewhat rigid expectation. I used to dream about having the strength to stand up and say no, to tell them it wasn't what I wanted, to make my escape. But I never could. It was my family, and everything I had known, and doing that would only get me out, and abandon my little siblings with no one to shelter them from it all. Then I was awakened as a senshi, and..." And I was a walking disappointment. Every injury I took doing something right was a blow to my value, and my parents weren't afraid that I was being injured, they were upset that they couldn't sell me for as high a price. Not the kind of thing she could share with him. "At 17, running away didn't look like being Scylla. But that was what my freedom became." She had told him once that being Scylla was a prison as much as being freedom. Would he remember? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It didn't... well.

Things were moving on, to something lighter, perhaps. Or at least something a bit further from heavy introspection and the definitions of freedom, and adventure. "You?" Jada widened her eyes dramatically, pretended to look shocked. "You were a troublemaker? Wreaking havoc and getting into scrapes and being a child?" her swoon was playful and dramatic. "Where are the smelling salts? I couldn't have guessed."

Her smile took a moment to fade, as did the laughter that had bubbled up, causing her side to ache. "I don't think it makes your people look bad, Caedus. For me, I think sharing it makes them seem more relatable. More human. People who don't take the time to know you aren't going to see these sides of you. But talking to you? Humanizes your people for me, I suppose. They're flawed. Brilliant, definitely, probably a bit stodgy with age. And when or if they come, they'll probably be a bit miffed after a thousand years of thinking Earth gave the headsman's axe to their wild child and his posse." Jada knew she sure as hell would be.

"Teach me something else I can say if I meet someone else from your world. I know Glynd. Glyndvyil- not to be confused with Glyndveil, which I shouldn't even mention in front of my parents." she scootched across the ground again, trying to wriggle (not-so) surreptitiously closer to him. "Maybe something like 'I come in peace' or 'welcome to earth' or something more logical than frantically screeching glynd at them if they look angry." Pausing, Scylla eyed the height difference between them, even when he was seated. "If I can even see their faces to know they are angry, all the way up there in the clouds."

Caedus was strangely easy to talk to. Maybe because he sat there silently, not offering judgment. Maybe it was because he was so old- certainly old enough to be her grandfather. Hah! She never would have thought that one of her burgeoning best friends would wind up being a 7-foot alien from outer space, but then... she never would have thought she would be able to control giant tentacles, and be a... reincarnation of a alien from outer space? Life was certainly full of surprises.

"Have you been eating?" she asked him, considering him with a frown. "I bring you all these little snack bars and a good meal, but is anyone else feeding you? You're skinnier than you look with your cloak on. Do I need to bring you something more? More protein, or is there something more nutritious for your species?" bright eyes flicked to his face, and she gave him a grin. "I'm almost 25, Caedus. That's probably like... 1000 Caedus-ian years."

Still, her head ducked, cheeks flushing with pleasure. You make me forget the things that haunt me. "Good." she said after a moment, reaching up to try and surreptitiously push some of the heat from her cheeks. "You deserve to find some peace. You're pretty fascinating yourself."

The silence that fell was, she thought, companionable and pleasant, and when he spoke again, she tilted her head to give him her full attention. "Duh-vellin, Glayn?" her accent was, of course, atrocious, she was sure. "Dvellyn Gleynn? D-" she took a moment before trying again. "Devlin Glain?" Well, it was better than she'd done yet. "So Glyn It would be like the kind of hello I give a friend coming to visit? Or is this a more formal kind of welcome? If you came to visit my house would it be the Dvlin glyn?"

After a thousand years, he deserved better than grammar questions, probably, but her interest had her leaning in towards him, eyes bright with excitement. "Is using Iln like calling someone a Glyndveil? Are you teaching me to insult people in Caedus-ian?" her laugh was short and bright.

He promised he was fed, and she considered him for a moment before letting it slide. She'd just have to bring him extra snacks in his next weekly care package. Maybe she would even slip in a couple additional language books- how many Earth languages did he speak, now? He handled English well enough, but would he want to learn French, or Spanish, or German? An Asian language? Something to ask, later.

Because we are friends. Jada shifted in her seated position, face bright with happiness before she hid it with the cloak. "It isn't rude," she told him with a laugh, "at least not among friends, probably. Especially when the friend is asking for it. Now, hopefully I won't start getting all the various usages mixed up in a crunch and start glyn-iln-veiling people. With luck I'll have more time to make sure I remember it all before I'm trying to carry on a conversation with someone other than you."

Tongue in cheek, Scylla said, "If you manage to figure out a better way to shield your aura, to your comfort, I do have a decent library, and I can practice my Dvelin, glyn." a small shrug, and a surprised grunt as sore muscles pulled. "Does your language have a name? Or should I keep calling it Caedusian? And do tell me these insults. I'll teach you a silly little poem I learned when I was learning to speak my first non-English language."

"Hey now," she protested, "We've been attacked by aliens once. You never know when round 2 is coming. If I can be like 'Halt! Peace! Oh come on, that was my car!' Anything that might make them pause and chill, maybe talk it out? Call them a rude name if they don't?" she gave him a tired, teasing smile. "Everyone should be able to curse in at least 3 languages. Really, you're doing me a huge favor." she paused, watching him lean back and smile.

"I like words, but if there's something else you can think of, I'd be honored. Customs are important too. And we have time." her eyes crinkled at the corners, though she tried not to grin. The fact he was willing to teach her in the first place... pleased her.

She could only imagine what it would be like, in his place. Alone for a thousand years, and now seemingly afraid... In a hostile world where even the people who weren't your open enemies were hostile, to themselves, to each other, and to you?

To open up as much as he had, to spend time with her... it was already an honor, really.

"I didn't want to go home yet," she said after a moment. "As for your guarding abilities, I trust you." she gave him a small smile. "You'd wake me up and send me home before some stray cat came and ate me, wouldn't you?" Still- he had a point, and she shifted her weight, pulling herself straighter and her legs closer in.

"Trying is half the battle," she assured him, "It is better than you might have done when we first met. You're healing, glynd." her pride was likely written on her face, though she wasn't sure he could see it in the dark, through the tired look still in her eyes. "I choose to believe in you, even if you don't believe in yourself just yet."

She shifted, stretching under her blanket- his blanket, technically- and when she peered at him next there was no tiara gracing her head, and the power that came with Scylla was gone, leaving just a small, tired young woman. "I promise," she assured him, "No fighting aliens til I have introduced them to the nice one." that was an easy enough promise to make to a friend. "I'll do whatever I can to help you home, you know that. But if they try and kill me, I definitely need to know more bad words to throw at them."

Rising, she tugged his cloak off her shoulders, peering at it with poor, civilian eyesight in the dark. "I don't think I actually bled on it, if you want it back tonight. Otherwise I'll have it cleaned and bring it back to you tomorrow night." along with a massive bag of treats, probably. Well, he'd be getting that anyways. She found herself increasingly concerned by how skinny he was.

Caedus needed to take better care of himself. Or his allies did. Or both. "Did you have any requests for your next care package?" she was still trying to figure out his favorite treats. He just stayed so lean. At his height, shouldn't be be somewhat bigger around?

She liked the fact he seemed to smile so much more than when she had first returned. He deserved smiles. he reached to accept the cloak, and she reached gingerly with thin fingers to try and touch his larger, bandaged hands. If contact was made, it was likely brief- he was settling back into it in mere moments.

More questions sat on the tip of her tongue- Have you tried wearing the clothes I brought you? Do you need more books? Have you been listening to the music I left? But the conversation was winding down, and he looked so genuinely plaintive as he looked up at her.

"Jada," she told him firmly, "My name is Jada. If you're sure you can't think of anything in particular I'll keep up a random selection. I'll get a favorite out of you eventually."

She didn't promise him, instead giving him a warm smile, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Before I forget, I'll need that crystal back. I'm so tired I probably won't use it tonight, but I don't want to forget it." He could get sick too, theoretically. What kind of illness could affect an alien who could live thousands of years? She didn't know, but what she did know was that she didn't want to encounter it.

He wanted to worry about her, but he was the one living in a forest.