Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I have learned not to trust the way people look in the last few weeks," Joy said grimly, inadvertently alluding to exactly how green she really was. She had let the whistle fall almost immediately with an air of resignation, and was now sort of half-circling, half-bouncing on her feet, anticipating another blow. "Would have absolutely sworn to you I saw a youma digging in a dumpster recently. Hand to god and everything. She was a senshi," she said, with an air of incredulity, as if she still could not believe this.

"And I mean - this could all be some sort of ruse. I could be some sort of great and powerful warrior, for all you know, stringing you along. Or just someone who takes a lot of kickboxing classes." She made a half-hearted feint, as if to try and trip Nymphe with a movement of her foot, but it wasn't even close to landing, and perhaps wasn't really trying to. "I'm not," she added, in case there was any confusion. "Up til a few weeks ago, if I found myself in a scrap in a dark alley I was going to be whipping out pepper spray and a prayer."

She hesitated, then dropped her defensive posture with a sigh. She did not, however, put herself back into kicking range when she did it - just in case. "I am getting used to the radar, but I still don't - I don't know. Everything gives me the heebie-jeebies, you know? Like, you could feel sparkly and still gut me, probably. I imagine. If not you, then someone else."

Maybe this, too, was some sort of Knight Thing - this inherent mistrust. Or maybe it was a Newbie Thing. Possibly it was, in fact, just a Joy Thing.

"If I'm being honest," she said begrudgingly, "I ********' hate the gym, and I definitely don't want to take up kickboxing. I think my main goal right now is just to avoid being in a situation where I have to find out too much, you know? Nail - " She once again did not clarify who she is speaking of, apparently her thoughts too distracting and selfish to bother; she pronounced it like "nie" " - seems to think that this is going to keep this damn thing from ever turning into anything useful." She hefted the ribbon as she spoke, as if it were somehow heavy with obligation. "But maybe I don't want it to, you know? Maybe I just run away to the hills somewhere." She said this with a trace of defiance, aware that she was developing a habit of engaging with her fellow Order members in some sort of self-improvement scheme and then petulantly challenging them with the idea that she might simply go AWOL, only to then go out and seek the self-improvement again.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I was using you as a hypothetical, you know? No bad impressions - totally the opposite. I really appreciate you trying to teach me something useful - not trying," she corrected. "You did. The fault was on the learning side, but I'll get there at some point. And that's not talking down on myself," she added, with a trace of nettled pride. "I don't do that, ever."

She paused, and then, after a moment's consideration, put out her hand. "Thanks for not kicking me in the face. You probably could have, if you wanted to." And then: "Thanks for giving me so much to think about. I probably need to do that more."