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"Sad?" Pendour quirked an eyebrow, then shook her head with the most emotion she'd shown in the conversation. "I'm so bad under pressure, and with orders. I feel like I'd only let people down. As you can see, I wasn't recruited into the Negaverse." She smirked at the thought of that, trying to imagine evildoing in a mermaid dress, even though it was probably possible and not really funny. "With my freedom, maybe I can make some change."

She looked back up at Gev. "What you tell me about the Negaverse is sad. Along with their questionable energy sources, they're threatened and manipulated into hurting others? And you said even friendship is used as encouragement for violence? That's just indescribably tragic."

She ran her hands over her hair a few times to calm down, and then she said, "That's what makes me come out at night. I want to try to help them, to break the cycle. I've heard without the Chaos they can become knights?" Her head cocked. "What about you? What are your suggestions for the Negaverse? You don't seem to want to wipe them out."

Pendour nodded. "Power always comes with a price. By our oaths, our price is giving aid to our wonders. That's all I've sworn. Maybe there's something sinister underneath. That's possible, but it seems better surface-level than asking for other people's energy and souls." She chewed on that thought for a moment. "It would take a lot to be worse than that, really."

His insults got a look out of her, eyes half narrowed like a disappointed mother. "You don't have to be rude about it," she muttered.

Watching him rub his chest, she finally put two and two together. "You left, didn't you?" It all made sense. She could hear the love in the way he spoke of the Negaverse, and yet here he was, sitting beside her with an aura bright as bright. She paused, choosing her next question carefully.

"Was it worth it?"

He would have maybe died and he still talked about the Negaverse like this, defended it so strongly? Pendour had to sit still for a few seconds and just try to process that. She had heard before that sometimes people loved people who had hurt them.

Pendour tried to smile, and even sad, her eyes went soft as soft. "Well," she said, slowly, because she didn't know the words that would help. She laced her fingers together in her lap. "I'm glad you're here, for what it's worth."

She tilted her head and then shook it, slowly. "It's not okay, no. You're right that I don't know the details, and maybe you decided to hurt people, but you also made the choice to leave, and even if you were threatened, that couldn't have been an easy one for you. Where you are now matters more than your past."

Now they sat side by side on a rooftop, instead. Of course, he could still hurt people she cared about. Maybe one of her siblings would be in this Dark Mirror Court that he hunted, but she didn't feel the need to bring that up. She looked at his face, instead. The eye patch alone suggested that he'd been through a lot, but he was still very human. It had to be better for him on this side of things.

She gave a little smirk. "And, well, I would be very lonely if I only liked innocent people."

Bleeding heart? Pendour blinked as she turned it over in her mind, finding that it didn't fit quite right, even for an insult. "Maybe," she said. "I think 'idealistic' is closer. I don't think I overreact to tragedies. I just try to see the best in people."

She hadn't broken eye contact. "Do you want me to be scared of you, or angry?" He could have hurt her easily, killed her, probably, but so could almost anyone walking down the street on a given day. It wasn't so different just because of powers, or because of pasts.

"If you still support the Negaverse, that's concerning, but you've done nothing, personally, to threaten my safety or earn my fear. Anger, maybe." She considered. There was nothing hot deep in her chest, but she realized she was feeling something.

"I don't think I'm pushing down any anger. I'm sad about the Dark Mirror Court, just like I'm sad about the rest, but I also don't have the information to talk more about it."

Well, maybe she was a bit of a bleeding heart. "I don't like the idea of violence, especially against groups of people, but I also understand that this is a war and lots of people are going to think that's what's right. It's complicated. I won't participate, but I can try to understand."

He was very adamant, she noticed. He was very adamant and seemed almost upset, but she couldn't quite let his war rhetoric slide. "Well, of course things will end in violence with that attitude," she said, soft as soft and not quite to Gev at all.

"I swear my life and loyalty to Neptune, and to Pendour" she recited. "This magic saved my life. I'll keep my oath." She nodded and wove her braid through her fingers. "Maybe I do participate. I do oppose the Negaverse, I think. I oppose them by rebuilding what they've destroyed and by trying to show them that Order is not something to fear, especially if we have a muddy past."

Finally, she looked back over to him. "We're not going to see eye to eye, it seems."

"And I know yours." Her voice was not harsh, but it also did not have its usual gentleness. She wondered how many people would be like this, would be soldiers looking for war between people's houses, and would think her too soft.

Maybe there was more to fix in this city than she had thought.

"It was nice to meet you," she said, simply, as he left. She stayed put, at least for a little while. The perch here was nice enough for that. She liked the view of the city and the wind, and despite everyone's warnings, she did not mind being alone.