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Ironically, the best possible way that Gouvernail could have motivated Elaine to be Joy once in a while was exactly the way he accidentally had - by pre-determining her failure, and more or less saying as much.

She had developed a quick eye for odd clothes, and at first she had tried to simply ignore the very odd appearance of the girl and her massive shield, who probably was not a cosplayer of some sort, but also did not seem to be actively fighting for her life or anyone else's.

But she felt the inward sting of Gouvernail's disapproval even if she never had to tell him about it, and thus it was more with a sort of stubborn defiance than any actual positive motivation that she found herself, after a quick detour into an unseen alley, doubling back and bearing with her the uncomfortable knowledge, as she felt the stranger's energy signature and identified it - with relief - as friendly, that she herself was now also a walking radar ping. It was a deeply unhappy thought.

She paused, swallowing hard and trying to sort out what she only half-by-instinct knew of sensing what was around her, and then stepped into view: a knight, with an expression that was half defiant and half lost. The face itself would have been enough to mark her out as a hapless newbie, but the utterly useless red ribbon dangling from her hand was probably enough to seal the deal, as was the way she gestured with it in a limp sort of helplessness.

"Um," she said, somewhat stupidly. "I - hello," she continued, even more stupidly. "I don't know what the etiquette is here," she added, with some defiance.

Joy looked at her hand with a momentary bewilderment, apparently alarmed by the gesture, and then laughed a sort of desperate laugh - the laugh of someone who is amused by something that they know isn't very funny.

"I'm sorry," she said, taking her hand in a firm handshake but releasing it almost instantly. "It's a long story, but I thought you were trying to kiss my hand for a second there."

She paused. It was still a bit of a struggle to introduce herself in that way - it felt like a lie, which was something that she hated doing.

"Joyeuse Garde," she said, and recognizing that the name was Immensely French, added: "Joy, I think. Page of Earth."

She thought briefly of that little Nega brat that had called her Page of the HOA, and had to suppress another outburst of inappropriate hilarity.

"I'm sorry to - to just roll up on you like this. I haven't seen any of us just..." she made a vague movement of her hands. "Around, yet, you know? Is that a thing that they - we do?"

She lifted her hand, briefly flashing a distinctively masculine-looking signet ring that somewhat jarred with the rest of her appearance, like a teenage girl wearing her boyfriend's class ring. "Yeah," she said, wrinkling her nose in confusion at the word 'found,' as it hadn't really required any searching, in her case. "And I found a cat - the Mauvians, I mean - anyway, she got it all..." she made a vague gesture, which seemed to have already become a running theme of the conversation: one movement of the hand to encompass a great deal of things that seemed to elude easy containment in words.

She hesitated, adding: "You're patrolling alone now, though," she pointed out. The word "patrolling" sat uncomfortably in her mouth, accompanied by another little wrinkle of her nose in palpable distaste.

She paused, considering this. "Do you need mine - I mean, it's so ******** French -" she said, gesturing at Ekstrom's name, umlaut inclusive, as it to suddenly sympathize in the unforeseen problem of difficult orthography.

And then, in a bit of a blurt, as if it was weighing on her in a way that considerably tipped the scales away from sending magical messages back and forth: "It's the no one forcing you bit that's giving me trouble, if I'm honest." She hesitated, as if about to confess some horrible sin. "I didn't want this." Her hands spread in a helpless little gesture. "I don't know how much of it I can do and my..."

Well. What to call him?

"Mentor- " good enough "- is out here haranguing me about giving up being - me," she said, stumbling, her face suddenly going white at how close she'd just thoughtlessly skirted to betraying her civilian name.

And then, defiant, as if expecting another harangue from Ekstrom herself and pre-emptively snubbing it: "I got conscripted. It's pretty bullshit. That ******** went to school for it," she finished indignantly.

All this tumbled out of her messy and quick, like she'd been saving it up to spill at the first opportunity, nursing a little grievance and eager to air it.

She looked at her mystified, as if Ekstrom had just presented her with wholly new information.

"Is it up to me?" she asked, almost aghast. "That's not how he made it sound. He made it sound like they'd be on me like bloodhounds."

She paused, and added with grudging fairness, as if granting this unnamed mentor grace was somewhat against her will: "Maybe it was different, back in his day. I think he just doesn't want me to up and die, and I guess I didn't give him much reason to expect better."

It was entirely possible that Joy was a little too reliant on the information of others, at this stage: her having accepted her mentor's admonitions at face value and now turning to Ekstrom with the apparent confidence that her information was just as good or better. Joy had, in her way, that flaw that a lot of honest people with basically-good hearts have: an expectation of honesty in the people she spoke to.

She lifted her eyes to Ekstrom again, and there was a note of open plea in them: "But you've kept your life and you haven't died. So I can do that. Yeah? I don't have to - to be out here getting chased by hellhounds or what the ******** ever, if I don't have to?"

She felt a twinge, at this, and pre-emptively got defensive again: "I don't care about honor and duty and all that s**t," she said, wholly unaware that she was indulging in one of her very rare lies.

She was quiet for a long moment, and once or twice her lips parted as if she would ask another question, only to lapse back into pensive silence.

"That's true," she said at last. "I didn't think it worked like that, but I guess it does."

She lifted her eyes, finally, back to Ekstrom's, and managed a weak smile - one of those smiles that can't help but be a little bitter, without the sting being directed at the person being smiled at, but at some larger thing beyond them both. "Thank you. Really, really, thank you. I will reach out - I'll be in touch - and if I decide some time that I'm ready to take it on, maybe we can - patrol -" the word still seemed to stick in her craw "- together. Maybe some time when I'm less useless. But not tonight. Thank you," she repeated, reaching out to take Ekstrom's hand again and press it before they parted ways.