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Hvergelmir turned at the sound of approaching footsteps. The aura she was sensing was on the level of a Negaverse captain, and for a hopeful moment, she thought, Zippeite? But unless Zippeite was giving a piggy-back ride to, say, Babylon (an amusing, if weird, thought), someone his size couldn't account for the heavy footfalls coming toward her. Nor, for that matter, the voice.

She didn't recognize this man. Hvergelmir definitely, definitely would've remembered if they'd met before. Life didn't throw too many 80-foot-tall, scarily armored, beautiful Prince Chris Hemsworths in a person's direction.

She put her arms up immediately in the universal gesture of surrender. There were lots of scary things in this world. Some of them were youma; and some of them were dark, mutated things that used to be men, like Bischofite; and some of them were crazed and detached from reality, like Sailor Ate. But some were just, wow, unreasonably tall.

"Hi," she called out, putting on a distinctly nervous smile. "I'm a page, yeah, and you are just profoundly enormous and I'm, like, extremely squashable especially for someone like you probably, so I just want to establish right away that I'm 100% harmless to you or anyone else in the Negaverse. I'm a sworn non-combatant. Hi! Hi."

If she was going to die, at least Hvergelmir was going to die as she'd lived: rambling like an idiot.

His weapon being set aside was a kind gesture and an immediate relief. She let out an audible whoosh of breath, then a shaky laugh. "Sorry, I -- sorry. I'm a little -- " She was going to say gun-shy, but with his accent, she wasn't sure how well the idiom would translate, and she didn't want to be rude to a Negaverser who was actually showing signs of being peaceable. " -- easily scared. I've had some bad luck."

His questions were a little more interesting. Despite his rank, he was either relatively new to the Negaverse, or maybe they really didn't feed their people much information. Her oath was her own work, and not something she knew of any other knights having done, but basic knight ranks should've been common knowledge. She thought of Zippeite again, and all that he hadn't known about Wonders and space. What did the Negaverse think, if they told their soldiers too much about their former brethren, they might be interested in learning more? It was a cruel, dark war that the Negaverse conscripted people into.

"Pages serving knights?" she echoed his supposition. There was a thought: rank order like the Negaverse had. "It might have been that way once, like in the old stories of knights like King Arthur's," she said. "Pages and squires serving knights until they learned enough to earn the responsibilities of knighthood for themselves. But that would've been long ago, before the Negaverse took our Training Academy from us. Now . . . we're scattered to the wind -- lost -- with only our Wonders," she paused, uncertain if he knew that bit of knight nomenclature -- Zippeite hadn't -- and amended, "our territories, left to give our service and protection to."

The fact that he didn't know about her oath was less surpising. Fortunately, it was something Hvergelmir was happy to share. "Oh, I'm not a wizard or anything -- if I manage to find my way to it someday, I'll just be a knight like everyone else. But I've taken an oath on my life, pledged to the Wonder I serve, not to fight the Negaverse while its soldiers fight to protect the Earth. That's what this mark on my arm means. So you see? Harmless. I come in peace."

His assertion that only those who fought under the same banner were harmless was something she didn't quite think was true, on the other hand. She'd spoken to Avalon, where she'd learned what the Negaverse used to recruit its people and to keep them in line. And even Bischofite had admitted it straightforwardly enough -- he hadn't been harmless to his own people, and when he'd stepped out of line, they'd been quick to turn on him, too. She couldn't say that, though, not without betraying Bischofite's request for discretion and maybe placing him in danger -- and on its own, the information she'd gotten from Avalon was too vague to prove anything. She'd have to leave that be, for now.

She smiled and placed her hand in Titanlåvenite's much larger one. He had a warm handshake, and it was no wonder: someone with that much muscle must have really good circulation. "Titanlåvenite," she pronounced carefully, with the attentiveness of someone who'd competed in dozens of spelling bees and had spent far too much time learning difficult words. She knew what it was like to have a difficult name to offer people. She repeated it once more to herself, quietly, to memorize it, and hoped she wasn't mangling it worse than she realized. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Hvergelmir Page of the Cosmos."

Hvergelmir held still while Titan inspected her arm, running a finger testingly down the gold and white glitter of her wonder's ancient crest: a Cosmos star, born from the well. The mark shimmered beneath his touch like glitter moving through water, its oil-slick rainbow glean catching the light a little differently beneath the movement; but by feel alone, it was indistinguishable from any other skin, except for being slightly warmer to the touch.

She wasn't used to being touched. It wasn't that it bothered her, but Laney was used to human contact being something she inflicted on other people. She gave hugs and physical affection fairly freely to anyone who allowed it, but only Tara really gave it back. Laney's parents weren't very touchy-feely, to say the least.

"Ah," Hvergelmir said when he was finished. "The cosmos isn't a planet or a star, like some of the other places knights hail from. It's -- the heavens itself. The sky, the galaxy, all the places in between. Everything above the Earth, from end to end." She lifted a hand to indicate the sky, sweeping it in a panoramic arc to demonstrate her point.

"And no, I'm definitely not a well," she agreed with a giggle. "Our names aren't quite the same as yours, they're more like titles. My Wonder's the well itself -- on a small island floating way out in space -- and I'm just the page of it. Kind of like the English peerage and some of their noble titles. Like how you might call the Duke of Norfolk by 'Lord Norfolk,' sort of. We use them like names because it's a little easier than drumming out the full title all the time."

Titan's immediate recognition of her Wonder was a pleasant coincidence, though. Between that and his appearance, he obviously had a Scandinavian background, which was more than she could boast. She'd tried to pick up a little Norwegian once for about a week, to see if she could learn a little more about her Wonder's legend, but she'd gotten as far as the concept of Bokmål and Nynorsk and decided that internet osmosis wasn't the best way to learn a new language. She'd stuck to Wikipedia to satisfy her curiosity.

"You and I were born for knighthood, but the war's much older than we are. It was hundreds of years ago our school was lost, back when the war first began. The place you call the Rift is what we knights once knew as our Training Academy -- generations ago. The monsters that haunt it were our brethren, once: what few knights lived and taught there when the Negaverse attacked, plus the servants and smallfolk that worked the land, and the children still in training. Do they teach you much of the old history, on your side?"

Hvergelmir had definitely never anticipated that question. "No, I'm afraid . . . " She trailed off suddenly, reconsidering something. "Well, actually, I don't know. There's nothing living on my island now -- the gardens have gone to rot and the trees are pretty much petrified -- but there's a stable at the back of the temple grounds where I lived in my old life, and I always wondered what it was for. So -- maybe I did." She put her hands on her lips and fixed Titan with a teasing look. "Would I be more impressive if I had a stag?"

His other questions, of course, were much more serious. She was glad he was asking, even if he evidently thought of himself as some kind of a grunt worker: the more she could tell him, the more he might want to learn in the future. He seemed to be a pretty decent, honorable person, so far -- he deserved to be able to get free of Chaos before it started carving the tender pieces of his heart away. Even a straightforward question she could answer was progress, right?

"Some of our information comes from other knights," she affirmed. "Babylon and Camelot are friends of mine, and they've helped me a lot. Troy I don't know. And let's see . . . at least one knight who was taken to serve the Negaverse found a way back to us, and I imagine he had insights most of us couldn't offer. Most of what I know was told to me by Negaverse soldiers themselves, though, honestly. I try to learn what I can, which can be . . . costly, at times, depending on my luck and on how much patience you guys have for my endless questions. But I didn't want to wage some kind of a cruel war on anyone without understanding what the person across from me had to fight for. It didn't feel right for me." She slid her fingers slowly through the air, drawing out her distaff between her two hands from where she kept it stored in its subspace pocket. "It's a weaving tool, not a weapon. I'm no warrior."

She'd missed a key part of his question, though: how she'd specifically heard of the history of the Rift. "As for the Rift specifically -- we have a sort of guiding force, like a great big light. I don't really understand it entirely, myself, but it's one of the great powers of the universe, I suppose. Order, like your Chaos. And sometimes it can talk to us, tell us about ourselves and our history -- things otherwise lost to time. It's called the Code. Is it a Code of Honor? A Code of Conduct? I'm not really sure. But for some of us, like me, who don't have an ancestor's ghost to guide us -- " she shrugged a little forlornly -- "It's all I have."

Hvergelmir blinked momentarily at the notion that Titan was maybe looking at her chest, then blushed, dismissing the idea. She didn't really receive that kind of attention from people. Generally her personality put them off. She was being fanciful. That was always her problem, wasn't it? Even her oath -- no one ever thought it was realistic.

"Oh, I'm sure Babylon would chaperone me around if I asked," she said, waving off the idea. "He's a total sweetheart that way. It's just, he's a knight -- and a really good one! I'm a page. And a really lousy one. He's got way more important things to do, and I don't want him to feel like I'm imposing on him all the time. It was my choice to take a risk with my life -- I don't want to force it on anyone else."

She shrugged, offering a sad smile. "Modern warfare doesn't respect the white flag anymore," Hvergelmir answered Titan in his own words. "It's a bad way. But I believe this war could be better. I don't think you and I are meant to be enemies just because we don't understand each other. And this was the only way to prove I meant it.

"Maybe it doesn't mean anything to some people. Maybe some people believe this war can only be won by killing, and it only ends with every last one of us slaughtered at your feet. I don't want to judge -- it's a hard path, for your side. This power in you -- " She reached up a tentative hand, meaning to lay it on Titan's chest, over his heart. Since he'd touched her arm earlier, she hoped he wouldn't mind. " -- it makes killing easier all the time. Maybe that's a mercy, for a soldier. But maybe for some people, my oath makes a difference. Maybe a few less people die. That's all I'm trying to do."

She had other questions. What had he meant about Babylon? Hvergelmir hadn't seen him in a few weeks. Was he alright?

And this other business, between Titan and his 'lord' . . . his phrasing made her nervous, for some reason. It reminded her too much of Schreibersite, who had called Buddingtonite his master, and professed his love and admiration for him with a slavishly fanatical devotion.

One thing at a time, though. She had to remind herself not to keep talking too much. She always talked too much.

A little over a year, Hvergelmir thought. We're the same. But while I came into my powers on my own, with my closest friend to help me, he . . . what did he get? A head full of lies and a heart full of Chaos. And pain -- he would've felt pain. Schörl had told her that much, long ago. 'It is painful to transform one thing into another,' she'd said, like that was the way of the world. Titanlåvenite had just been unlucky -- but he had a good heart, and an exceptionally strong one. He'd killed people, and that was heartbreaking, but hadn't he said he hated it? Didn't he still have compassion? If their positions were reversed, she didn't think she could've lasted this long with her moral compass still pointing anywhere near due north.

He doesn't belong here.

"I don't know if I'll ever be a great lady," she shook her head, "but thank you."

His heartbeat was strong and sure beneath her hand.

"I go to North End Park three nights a week," Hvergelmir offered. "You can visit me any time. But listen, Titanlåvenite -- "

She glanced away for a moment, long enough to resettle a smile on her face. "You're not a youma. You're not a thing with a simple use. You have a good heart. So hang onto it, okay?"

'I only wish to serve well.'

There it was again: that little chill that ran up her spine. That momentary sense of discomfort she couldn't quite place, the sense of dealing with something very important and being utterly out of her depth. Maybe it was just that it hurt to see someone with such a selfless motive turned to such a horrible purpose. Maybe it was just knowing the Negaverse would take the loyalty he so readily offered, and reward it by devouring him whole.

There was no point in saying that, though. Not to someone who was offering to check on her and make sure she wasn't running into too much trouble from his own people. Not to someone who was willing to come to her aid if she wrote to him for help. Not to someone who was . . . even concerned about making sure she stayed well hydrated? (Or, maybe, was offering to show up with a case of beer?)

Hvergelmir grinned, utterly charmed. "Bring a deck of cards or something, too. It can get utterly boring, honestly."

Otherwise Hvergelmir was pretty sure that entertainment would be relegated to speculating on what things in the park Titan could lift, and then what things he could lift while she was sitting on them -- and she didn't want to treat him like a court jester performing for her amusement. For all she knew, he was a quiet librarian in his everyday life, regardless of what he looked like. (Hvergelmir thought of Camelot for a moment, politely shelving books alongside Titan, completely unaware of each other. Not quite as odd of a mental picture as Zippeite giving Babylon a piggyback ride, but not bad, either.)

"Oh, wait, one thing," she said, that train of thought drawing her up short. "What did you mean about Babylon, earlier? Is he okay?"