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Teide was on her way home, a spring in her step and an extra-large sized bubble tea clenched tightly in her right hand. Why the extra large size? What was the special occasion? Well, she'd done extra well on her GED practice exam earlier, and that deserved a reward! She was going to be successful!

She was bopping her way along a back street on her way back to Laney's apartment when a negaverse signature crossed her mind's eye. A lieutenant. Close by. Wait. No.

Teide was nearly on top of her already!

She looked up from her drink, blinking at the lieutenant in her path. A dark, loamy smell filled her nostrils. Tinged with blood - the smell of chaos.

Teide took a step back. "I don't want to fight you," she said.

Teide frowned at the lieutenant. It wasn't as though she'd done it on purpose! She'd been minding her own business and drinking her bubble tea when suddenly, Negaverser! "I'm not... approaching you," she said, carefully echoing the woman's vocabulary. "I was just... walking. In the same place that you're walking. It's a coincidence."

That sounded very much like she was protesting too much.

"Really," insisted Teide, which she realized sounded even worse. She shouldn't let a lieutenant get her all frazzled like this! It was unprofessional. She'd been a lieutenant! She knew what a shitty job it was and how this woman almost certainly had no idea what she was doing.

Be more confident, she thought, straightening her spine and lifting her chin.

"Why did you approach me?" she asked, crossing her arms. "That seems like the better question."

Teide frowned slightly - this was an argument of pure semantics, and therefore over nothing at all. The lieutenant clearly didn't want to admit any fault at all, but she was more bark than bite. A good thrashing? The knight raised an eyebrow. She was two ranks up and had mastered whatever combat training the negaverse was currently putting this girl through the paces of. She'd trained with Bischofite and Avalon - a legacy of traitors, surely, but a legacy none the less.

"Teide," she answered, deciding to treat this woman as a particularly small and barky dog with a neglectful owner. Lots of people in the Negaverse were like that, and they'd never know there was a way out unless it was shown to them.

You've got to be kind.

"You do?" she asked graciously. "Thank you." She rather liked her bow, too...

But it would grow back.

She unraveled her belt and pulled it out of her coat. "You can have it," said Teide. "I could tie it in your hair for you."

Teide blushed, eyes blown wide. "No," she said hurriedly. "Of course not!" What would she even be able to do? Order had no powers that worked well in ambush. She couldn't just reach inside someone's chest and pluck out their starseed like she could have as Astrophyllite.

"Not everyone is out to get you," she said soothingly, looping the ribbon around Cavansite's head and tying it in a bow. She arranged the lieutenant's hair, stuck the star ornament over the center, and stepped back, hands clasped daintily in front of her chest.

"It suits you," she said.

Perhaps Cavansite could wear starlight in other ways, if she could be brought into the light. There was always a chance.

"You don't need to be afraid of me," she said, frowning delicately. She thought she'd seen through the lieutenant's bluster for what it truly was - uncertainty. Fear. "I'm sorry this happened to you, that you were corrupted. I was, too, once."

Teide looked sadly at the lieutenant. She remembered what it was like to be in her position, not knowing that there was a way out, or even just another way to be. "I'm a knight," she explained. "A Wonder. You.." She bit her lip. "You could be one, too, if you wanted to. The Negaverse... it takes our power from us, replaces it with Chaos, files away all of the things that make us special and makes us rocks."

She smiled for the other woman's benefit, trying to be reassuring. "But there's a way to leave the Negaverse," she said, "If you want to. It's not a good place. Maybe you don't feel it yet, because there's only a little Chaos in you... but when there's more, you'll stop being you. You'll start to do things you don't want to do, think and say things you know you wouldn't, because Chaos wants you to."

"But you don't have to let it get that far."

She considered the bow on Cavansite's head.

"It really does look good on you," she said.