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Below them was stone. Some of it was marble. Some of it was mosaics of tide-smoothed stones, and seaglass, and pearl, all swirling around in abstract patterns. In any case, it was solid under their feet.

Above them was the sea. It was held back by a sphere of glass, as the Wonder of Pendour was contained in something like a bubble, but there was no ignoring that it was there. The water made the light ripple over their skin in waves, and there was a soft blue-green cast to everything around them.

As always, the two arrived in something of a central location on the Wonder. To their right was a grand marble staircase, each baluster carved to look swirl like an ocean wave. That led to the upper level, to the houses and the pavilion and the parts of the Wonder that Pendour hadn't explored as much yet. To the left were the gardens, ever expanding, a flash of green against all of the gray, and white, and blue.

The cove was visible in the distance in front of them, although it would be a few minutes walk to get close. They could hear the waterfalls from here, though, splashing into the pool below.

Pendour seemed to walk lighter, here. The weight was off her shoulders. She didn't even do the nervous tic of trying to hide her eye.

"Welcome," she murmured, even as she stared up to the sea above, "To the place that has become a part of me."

If Hercynia was looking up to study the architecture of the bubble, she would see that it was supported buy a few massive stone arches. At least, it had once been supported by massive stone arches. Now, it seemed that they were crumbling from the center, and the sides of them stuck up at various heights like a set of broken ribs, leaving the magic to hold this place as together as it was.

Pendour glanced up, too. She didn't always look at the ocean above when there was so much in her Wonder itself to focus on, but there was something calming about the blue green of the water, and the diffused light, it was true.

"Not a fish," she murmured, unphased by the question. "Not all the way. Um, I have magic to breathe underwater." She reached up to tug her thick white hair away from her neck, and she focused on that magic so that Hercynia could see the way that a set of ethereal gills formed there. "That's all."

It made her close enough to a fish, in the minds of a lot of people, between that and she scales on her skin and the fins on her outfit, but underneath the layers of magic she was undeniably human.

"Here. Do you want to see the cove?" she asked, nodding towards the waterfalls in the distance. "Getting that all fixed is how I bonded with this place."

There was a sea under the sea. Well, it was more of a cove, as Pendour usually called it, or a bay, or a particularly large pool. There were no waves, but the water did continually shift and lap against the mosaic tiles, particularly in the shallow area where those tiles made something of a beach.

On the beach, the mosaics showed a turtle, and a gull, and other sea animals, but Pendour walked past those to kick of her pearl-laced shoes and to wet her bare feet in the water.

The pool was fed by at least ten small waterfalls, coming down from the upper level, and one much larger one at the deepest point. It always calmed her to be here, now that the cove was in the state it was. She could see the light patterns dancing across her skin, feel the mist that came off the falls on her face, and at her fingertips.

"It wasn't like this when I first came here," she told the Page at her side, even as her eyes drifted closed in something that was almost meditation. "Everything was dry as dry, except for some stubborn patches of algae. This," she waved towards the cove, "Was full of scars of this place's tragic past."

A moment passed before she admitted, "Was, um, full of bones. The dead. I put them to rest best I could, I think that helped."

"Work," said Pendour, with a little shrug. There were high walls around the cove to make it feel more private, but Pendour looked around anyway, imgaining the gardens beyond those walls, and the pavilion and the upper level above.

"Um, I planted things where I found soil," she said, "Although I think it was magic that helped them grow. I cleaned the cove. I couldn't bury anyone so I made a mausoleum out of one of the buildings upstairs, and I scrubbed the rest. There was dead coral and," she waved a hand, lips twisting a little, "Buildup?"

Algae, to be specific. There had been so much algae.

"I got a Mauvian to help me fix the pipes, to turn on the water. Then I had to unclog some pipes."

Her good eye flicked to her hand, to the markings there. "That was how I Transcended, actually. In some ways, it wasn't, um, glamorous, but that was also the day I managed to fill the cove."

A Wonder with no buildings? A wonder that was only trees? As Pendour considered t his, her smile was soft. "That sounds beautiful," she murmured, and then, a moment later, "That sounds like the kind of place that I would feel at home, I think."

It had taken work for her to become the Knight of this place, work that went deeper than just fixing pipes or digging algae out of where the waterfalls were supposed to be, or being in the garden beds until there was dirt under her fingernails and dust up to her elbows. The first time she'd come here, she'd known nothing about music, nothing about the sea. She'd only been tied to Neptune through ancestry that she didn't care about.

Of course something has resonated with her about all this, even back then, but it had been something small. Of course now, this place felt like her true home, and she was its keeper, and the marks on her skin showed the closeness of their bond, but that had been a long road, a bumpy one.

Trees sounded easier.

"I'm not much of a mermaid in real life. I like plants." Maybe she was more into gardens than wild places, but she wasn't immune to the beauty of forests.

"If there's nothing to fix, you can just go enjoy the beauty of the place you're the steward of. Explore, or sit in the shade, or," she shrugged as her good eye scanned the waterfalls before her.

"If there's something more you're meant to do, maybe it will come to you. Some Knights have memories of their past, some have ancestors that speak to them."

Some had ancestors to insult them,butt hey didn't need to get into that one right now.

"Well, I can't promise that if you go up there again you'll find more answers," said Pendour, gentle as ever, but at the same time knowing that she only knew so much about this Page's Earthly Wonder. Knights were all so different from each other, which made things more complicated sometimes.

She couldn't even promise that everyone had a past life or an ancestor. As far as se knew, the Code could lend power to anyone, regardless of what had happened in the past, and if there was no connection to the past, it might make the Wonder feel a little different than what she had here.

For example, there would be no Irving telling here that she was wrong and awful, that she was ugly, that she was a failure to the legacy.

She shook that thought away with a physical shake of her hands. As this place came back to life, it became easier not to dwell on all that so much.

"But it might be worth it to see if you can find up there, if you're interested, and I can always go with you if you don't want to be alone." She was, she found, enjoying this girl's company.

"So, um," she turned back to the waterfall, "That's the story of this place. We can stay a while, if you want, or go back whenever."

"Of course I'll come," said Pendour, who would never turn down a chance to see someone else's Wonder, and who was already feeling a little protective of the Page by her side. "We can find our way together."

Or, failing that, it was always easy enough to go home.

She was glad that Hercynia was finding some peace at her Wonder, at least enough that she didn't want to leave quite yet.

Pendour herself could stay here for hours. She often did. It was a nice feeling, to run her fingers over the floor mosaic tiles. Some were round and bumpy like pearls. Most were flat and cool and smooth, with the grooves in between making it interesting. The sounds of the water and the beauty of the place made added to that calming sensory experience that it was easier to find here than anywhere else.

If she was alone, sometimes she would take advantage of the magic that allowed her to breathe underwater and she'd dive underneath the surface, close her eyes and float there for a while, but that seemed rude to do when she had company.

She closed her eyes whee she was, instead, letting things fade into a comfortable silence.