Welcome to Gaia! ::

The little care package project was doing wonders for getting Pendour outside more often. Her first delivery had been to a friend, but she was sure that there were plenty of senshi and knights out there who she hadn't met yet who could still use a bit of holiday cheer. She wandered the streets in her elf hat, and she headed straight towards the first Order aura that she felt.

She was not expecting to end up at a suspiciously human-sized hole in the ground.

For a full two minutes, she just stared at the hole from several yards back. She'd been sucked into magical traps before. That had been just awful. She was trying to be more careful. Still, when nothing terrible or dramatic happened, she crept closer, careful to step lightly. She was sure, now, that the aura was coming from inside the hole, and she didn't want to leave anyone else trapped, either.

She peeked over the edge only to give a little gasp and draw back again.

There wasn't blood or anything like that, but the person in there was staring up so blankly. There had been something else in there, too.

The second time she looked down, she was able to pick out the bunny ears from among all the fluff. Monsters came in many shapes, though. That didn't mean much. "Please be alive," she whispered.

Okay. Alive was something.

Her brows still pressed together, though, although he would have to be really watching in order to see it. As usual, Pendour kept herself partly turned away.

There was only so much you could know about the thoughts going through someone's head when they were lying alone in a hole in the middle of winter, but she had a few guesses.

"Okay," she said, and she sat down cross-legged right at the edge of where the dirt was starting to crumble. Her elf hat jingled. She fumbled though her subspace pocket for a moment before pulling out a small packet. "Would you like this hand warmer while you work up the motivation?"

She did glance down again as she offered it to him, even though it meant showing a bit more of her face. "That's a lot of rabbits," she said. "Do you think you're in their house? Um, a warren?"

She hoped they didn't bite.

They weren't biting. That was good. Pendour still gave the bunnies a long sideways glance, though, only blinking when the senshi actually moved.

"They think you're a couch, maybe? You're probably much softer and warmer than the ground," she said.

Then she raised a hand to the elf hat. "Thank you," she said, a soft smile beginning at the corners of her mouth. She shook her head enough that the bell on the hat jingled a little. "No, it's not very Neptune. It's because I'm helping deliver presents. The senshi and knights are always working so hard. We all deserve a little holiday cheer."

She pulled out a larger gift bag, one that took up about half the subspace pocket. It had candy stripes on it, and tissue paper coming out the top. "The hand warmer comes with a scarf, if you'd like, and some candy and such."

"It's a knight project. I think Camelot paid for a lot of it?" She squinted at the bag, then put it to the side. She wasn't the type to ask about what someone's financial situation was like, under the glamor. If they handed her something, she would assume they could afford it.

"You don't have to take it if you don't want to, but-" she pressed her lips together, curled a lock of hair around her thumb, and turned to look him straight in the eye.

"Look, um, are you okay?"

The worry was plain on her face.

Pendour smiled sadly. "Well, you already look much better than me," she said, then blinked. It was dark, for her, and probably not therapist-approved, but the words were already out of her mouth.

She slowly reached down to shake his hand, her grip gentle. "I'm Pendour, of Neptune. Hi." One of the bunnies took that moment to nudge at her. Cautiously, she leaned down and scratched at its ear with one finger. It twitched, and she shrank back again.

"I understand. It can be a hard time of year. I feel it a little, too. I'm sorry you're having a rough time." She shifted, her shoulders partially relaxing now that he was talking to her. "Do you want to talk about any of it? Work, or snapping into pieces, or just how it's always dark now, and cold as cold?"

The weather alone was enough to make her want to slip back into bad habits and not leave her bed.

She peeked into the bag and pulled out a few pieces of chocolate. "Talk over chocolate, maybe? I don't think I can ask for repayment since I wasn't the one buying this, but you could share."

Pendour squinted into the distance, considering.

"I don't think I'm judging you," she said, voice even softer. Although it was true that she'd thought some things about him. She couldn't help that. "Honestly-" And while Pendour softened her thoughts sometimes, she rarely hid them, "I can tell you're out of it, but even so, you haven't tried to stab me, or said anything awful about my face, and those are the main things that, um," she paused, then continued for the sake of honesty, "Make me think badly of someone."

She dug through the bag and handed over a chocolate, one that was bite sized and not intimidating, hopefully. She unwrapped another for herself.

"My family's big, and they like to do Christmas up. Presents. Dinner. Drinks and board games with all the cousins. My sister finally talked me into going to a party over the summer, so she'll probably try again for New Years." She smiled gently at the thought, not seeming too put out by the idea.

She couldn't help but stare a little at the rabbits in his hair, but she didn't mention them.

"What about you?"

While he talked, Pendour chewed on her own chocolate and slowly lowered herself down into the burrow near Alya's feet so that she didn't have to twist her neck so much to look at him. She listened carefully, nodding when he mentioned his boyfriend and shaking her head when he mentioned that he wouldn't be home, even if she did twitch for a second when one of the bunnies decided to jump into her lap.

She was silent for a while even after he asked her a question.

"Therapy helps," she said eventually. "It's hard, sometimes, because I can't be completely honest there, but the strategies do a lot for helping me function. The, um, medicine, too. I also have friends that are sweet as sweet. Magical friends, who I can talk to." She paused, staring at the rabbit with her brows furrowed a little. "And, well, sometimes it still feels like too much and I stay wrapped up like a cocoon in my apartment for weeks on end, but, um, the first time it was months on end, so I think I'm making progress?"

Even after her more recent injury, or what had happened with the monster in that other town, things had never slipped into being quite as dark as they had then.

"You're right about the tree, you know. You can put the lights on it whenever, celebrate whenever, try to do something to put a little cheer into the world whenever. For example, when your boyfriend gets back." She smiled softly, one eyebrow raising just a fraction of an inch.

"And if you need a place to go on Christmas Day, you could come to dinner and games. My parents could talk and talk to you about the adoptions process. They went through it with seven of us." There was no hesitation, nothing in her tone of voice that hinted that she was just offering to be polite. Instead, she nodded again, as if it were perfectly normal to invite complete strangers to your home.