Welcome to Gaia! ::

A long silence passed. Joy, only partly distracted by the otters, indulged in a moment of unmitigated wretched feeling as always attended her when she knew that she was about to do something unkind to another for the sake of being kind to herself.

"I wish you could," she said at last. "She'd like you, I'm sure." And she would - Pendour, all gentle sweetness, was exactly the type to win Petitcru over. "But I'm just not ready to let those two halves of my life bleed into each other any more than they have to, and the me that isn't a Knight - that me that walks around all day, you know? - she has that dog with her all the time. Maybe one day I'll think differently, and if I do, you'll be the first person I invite to come meet my dog." She thought, briefly, of Camelot, who had so easily distributed an invitation to meet him in his civilian life - one which she had declined - and wondered whether this willingness had more to do with security in his own power than anything else.

She thought, too, of the fact that she now had heard Pendour's name, and would try to forget it. When she had learned Nis's identity she had felt honorbound to share her own - but that had been different, hadn't it? They'd already known each other, and it had been more than just a name. It had been an entire life.

"And if I ever get cute and cuddly things on my Wonder, I'll invite you to meet those too, before anyone else," she added, feeling that this, at least, was something that she dutifully owed, and would be pleased to share anyway. She felt compelled to add, for reasons she couldn't articulate: "And I feel like you need to see that not all of the ghosts in these places are assholes who call you belittling names and try to embarrass you in front of strangers. You know?"

She looked at the little miracles playing around her legs, her face twisting up a bit as she recalled telling Pye that petting a talking cat had been the best day of her life. Maybe, under different circumstances, this might have been up there as well.

"They are," she conceded, with the reluctance that was always going to attend admitting that the Bullshit had some upsides. "And when I have more time, I'll give you a yell. I think he thinks I'm bringing people for the purposes of avoiding having to listen to him," she confessed, a little uncomfortably, without having to explain who "he" was. "So I should probably cool it on bringing passengers every time. But consider the invitation open, for when I can justify it again. Maybe you can give me some pointers for things I can do that don't involve plumbing and gardening," she added with a rueful little laugh. "And thank you for having me this time. It's beautiful," she repeated, a hair wistfully, as she reluctantly began to disentangle herself and rise from the water's edge.