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Senshi and knights tended to show up in parks, Daphne had noticed, and so that was where she had started to set up her walks and runs where she scouted for potential allies, and where she dusted any youma that came out of the bushes to try to eat her.

It was the best excuse she had, anyway, to get away from all the awful, square, concrete buildings for a while. There were a lot of things she didn't like about Earth, but it was all summed up in those awful, square, concrete buildings. She'd found out that the style was called brutalist.

Who would want their houses to be brutal?

She was jogging along a park trail, thinking about architecture, when something else caught her attention. It was an aura, Order, but small.

A Chibi?

Daphne wasn't sure that it was for the best for a child to be out here alone where there were youma in the bushes.

It didn't take long for Daphne to track down someone poking through the bushes, but the girl she found looked to be about her own age. The aura coming off of her was decidedly chibi, though, which made Daphne blink, her pupils narrowing into curious slits.

Then she was called pretty, in that innocent, curious way, and she froze for a moment before running her hands over the rainbows of her skirts, her tail waving happily behind her.

"You're pretty, too," she said. "Your outfit looks so warm."

Which, she supposed didn't matter so much right now, since it was still summer here on Earth and that meant the city was cloaked in a strangely damp heat, but that was apparently about to change, and it was about to become cozy season, which she was sure was some euphemism for freezing again.

It would be nice to have a fluffy outfit at that point.

"Nice to meet you," she added. "Finding anything?"

Daphne didn't think that Mary had anything to be embarrassed about. She'd figured out t hat there was nothing in these bushes, which was helpful. It was the worst when one of the youma, even if it was one of the weakest ones, with a tiny aura, managed to sneak around and get a surprise attack in.

She also wasn't making a big deal out of the tail, which always gave someone a few points as far as Daphne was concerned.

"I can hardly judge you for not being active," she said with a small shrug. "I didn't take things seriously for a long time. It's been nine, ten years and I'm still a basic." She gave a nonchalant little shrug.

That number went up to as high as a thousand years depending on who you asked, but Daphne didn't think there was any need to get into all that right now.

"I'd probably still be a chibi, too, if I hadn't gotten dragged to the ceremony." There was a slight pause where her lips pressed thin. "And, if I hadn't gone along with the dragging because I didn't care about the rest of it, but I didn't want everyone seeing me as a child."

"We can take things seriously together," Daphne agreed, reaching out to take the hand Mary was offering. "I'm here on Earth on serious business. I'm looking for allies. Friends," she clarified after a moment, because it was coming down to relationships in the end more than formal alliances on paper.

It was looking more and more like Mary might be a good friend for her.

"The ceremony wasn't complicated or anything. It was in the government building where I lived, in front of some officials. I just had to promise to be a good senshi, treat all of my people as my family," she shrugged.

Although now that she was thinking back on it, something felt heavy in her stomach, since she wasn't sure she'd kept those promises with the way everything had turned out.

"Which means, yes, I'm not from here," she added in case her tail and markings hadn't made that obvious enough. "I don't know if things would be different for you, because you are."

“I like that,” said Daphne, and since she was already holding Mary’s hand, she shook it, like people did on Earth when they made deals.

This was a deal.

“I’ve been training, already, but I’ll keep it up, and I’ll see if I can help with your ceremony. We’ll get strong together.”

She liked this. There were people already who were offering howler help in ways that seemed to be unconditional. She hadn’t had anyone to hold her accountable. It was something she was suddenly realizing she needed.