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Oh. Oh no. Irving had a sharp tongue when he was in his moods, but he would usually come to her with those comments and then vanish again once fairly quickly once he'd gotten his frustration out.

He'd mostly been ignoring Joy before, but now his gaze flicked over to her.

"Culture is for the living, my dear," he told her coldly. "I mastered those games while I was alive, but shouldn't I be allowed to tell the truth now that I've been staring at these stones for a thousand years waiting for someone else to come along?"

Pendour reached out to just slightly brush the side of her hand against Joy's. "Sorry," she murmured. "He gets like this sometimes." Louder, to Irving, she added, as firmly as she could manage, "Um. We can talk about this later, if you want. I'm trying to show my guest around."

Irving, however, was mid-rant.

"But no. You're whole generation is as soft as you, aren't they? They can't take some honest criticism. They probably don't have the stomach to do what's necessary, the same as you. Maybe they all just want to sing to flowers and talk about peace like that will do anything at all. Honestly, it's no wonder that Earth is still overrun with Chaos. And when Earth falls, I'll be stuck here forever."

He met Joy's eyes squarely. "But, no. If I try to give my opinion and help, I'm unspeakably cruel. Hopeless."

Pendour was trembling slightly.

"I know you're being like this because you thought I might die facing that threat," said Pendour, her voice coming more solid now as she stepped up in front of Joy again. The other knight was very passionate, and while Pendour appreciated the support, it seemed like the situation was just escalating.

And this wasn't about their guest at all, not really.

So she spoke, even as Irving opened his mouth again, and he paused long enough to listened.

"I-" That distant look in her eyes came back. "I tried to die for you there, okay?" Maybe she shouldn't be speaking of these things now, but since she'd started she couldn't hold it back. "I tried to give all my energy to the shield protecting us. Everything. That way I could protect Earth, and not have to watch everyone else try to murder one more thing, and maybe after, a new Pendour could awaken who would make you happier."

Irving's eyes widened a hair. He'd never quite voiced that he wanted that, but he'd been starting to imply it more heavily in recent days. Sometimes, Pendour would have given it to him happily.

But it wasn't that simple, was it?

"But Abzu found me when I was at the brink, and I remembered. There's people I'm living for now, people who I want to share this time with me. And I'll keep holding on for them, and I'm sorry," her voice cracked, the tears starting to brim, "That I can't make everybody happy."

"Sarandon-" he started, and for a moment, his voice was almost slightly softer. She looked at him. "I am only trying to help."

Her eyes narrowed. "I will talk to you," she told him. "Later."

He glanced between the two of them, and that finally seemed to be enough for him. He vanished, leaving Pendour to stare blankly at the path.

"It's complicated," said Pendour.

Was she wiping away tears with one hand? Yes. Did she understand Irving better than she once had? Yes. That was also true. She preferred when he left her alone, but she tried not to have malice for him, either. She took Joy's arm in hers. "He's the most vocal, but I know there's people on Earth who don't like that I'm a pacifist. Many people, honestly, who I don't agree with on how we should be handling the war."

She sighed, then kept walking. "It gets to me, sometimes. More than I think, maybe. I'm sorry you had to see that, though."

The otters did help some with those feelings. They were back at the entranceway now. The cove was only a little farther.

"And I don't, um, think that's how it works, with the ancestors that are still here? Most of us reincarnate like everyone else. The ones who stayed?" Her brow furrowed a little, but more thoughtful this time. "I think they chose to."

She hadn't asked Irving about it, but Stromboli's ancestor had mentioned something like that.

This was, strangely enough, considerably more within Pendour’s comfort zone. She listened to Joy speak about her beliefs as they walked down the tiled path, watching her from the corner of her good eye and nodding softly.

“You hold it against the Code?” she asked, a gentler, more thoughtful tone to her voice than there had been a few minutes before.

As they approached, the cove came fully into view. It was a massive pool of water in the center of the Wonder, at least the size of a football field. At the shallow end, which they were approaching, was a sloping, tiled shore covered in mosaics of sea life. The rest was circled by two levels of raised paths. The bottom level was ringed with by arches and decorative columns that seemed to be entrances to indoor areas. The top level was open, and that was where the waterfalls came down from. The largest was at the very back, but there were others around the perimeter.

Pendour didn’t stop at the beach, but slipped away from Joy and walked until she was knee-deep in the water, the train of her dress floating behind her.

“Do you not want to be a knight?”

"Yes," said Pendour, after a quiet moment. A dark form slipped through the water near them, larger than the various fish that were swimming about, and after a moment one of the otter's faces broke the surface as it turned to look curiously at each of them in turn.

"I'm, um, not sure that I like thinking of it as kinghthood, exactly, although I use the term for convenience. Obviously, I hate the war." She tilted her scarred side away again as her lips pressed into a thin line.

"But that's a completely separate issue. That's not what this is." She nodded to the Wonder around them, then reached into the water. The otter crawled willingly into her arms, and she closed her eyes, petting it for a moment before she turned to show Joy. "That's not what we're meant to be."

"There's so much more to magic than destruction. This place saved my life, and the fact that I've been able to use my abilities to help others means everything to me." She glanced downwards, to where she knew her Code piece was, in its room under the cove. "I suppose I could give my powers back to the Code and let it pick someone else. It's an offer that's always on the table. We're not meant to do this unwillingly."

And that would let Irving have his way, she supposed, while she still had a semblance of life. But it was such a strange thought that she'd never considered the option before, however briefly.

"But that would be like tearing out my own heart."

"They're lovely, right? Sweet as sweet." Pendour reached down to touch her otter's nose. A second dark otter face peeked up from out of the water, dark eyes fixed on Joy. It didn't get quite as close to her as the one that was Pendour was holding, not yet, but it did start to swim in a circle a few feet from her.

"Here," said Pendour, shifting her companion to one arm so that she could reach into subspace for a few fish flavored cat treats. She gave most to Joy, and the last one to the otter in her arm, which squeaked happily. "They like these."

Whatever doubts Joy might be having, a few moments with some sweet creatures weren't going to make them any worse.

"If you go sit down on the shore, you might be able to get that one in your lap."

Food changed everything. The otter splashed after Joy, immediately standing on one of her legs to try to get to her chest. Pendour's started to squirm, and she let it down so that it could go beg as well.

Pendour herself walked to the shallows, sitting on her knees while still in a few inches of water.

"I see this as what we're meant to be," she said softly, watching them interact. "Well, what I'm meant to be. I won't put words in someone else's mouth. But, what I mean is, um,"

She felt like her phrasing was off, like it so often was, but she tried, in that gentle way of hers, "Chaos, and the war, it interrupts our lives. In awful ways, sometimes. Ways that, um, define us, despite our best efforts." She raised a hand to her scars.

"But the baseline, who we are, um," she considered. "What I'm trying to say is Chaos can interrupt a life where you have your job, and your dog, and that's all, or it can interrupt a life where you get to bring a Wonder back from the brink, and hug a mermaid otter."

"No," said Pendour, and while instead of looking at Joy, she watched the way the water gently lapped and rippled against the shore, she stayed serene, not upset in any way by the woman's emotions, "It's not insulting to me. I understand because this place is so important to me because I've put so much effort into it at this point."

And her life, back before she'd awakened, hadn't been particularly impressive. She'd worked some, but she'd still been relying on handouts from her parents to afford her tiny apartment that she could never keep clean.

"At the beginning, it was confusing for me, too. Life in general, not just war and magic, but," she smiled softly, "I knew how to garden."

Looking over the cove, she spotted Irving again in the distance, standing on the upper layer near one of the waterfalls.

"Well, and maybe because there was a part of me that wanted to prove to him that I could do it my own way." It hadn't quite worked, but she had a lovely wonder now, all the same.

"And having the dog and the job be what you've worked for and what you want is no less valuable. There's ways to hold on to that, I think, even if you still want to do what you can as a knight now that you're here."

A moment passed and she asked, almost a little nervous, "For example, could I maybe meet your dog?"