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There were too many things, in the run up to the holidays, to justify adding yet another thing to her to-do list. Even now she was escaping - and the word had never felt more appropriate - to the Garde simply to avoid the incessant group chats and phone calls from Brandi. It was, of course, well and good to surprise her mother not only by showing up at home for Christmas, but having group photos of the entire family already taken, printed, and framed. But having to drive halfway from Destiny City to the middle-of-nowhere Kentucky simply to get a set of department store glamour shots done had eaten up a day already, and it felt like a day that she increasingly did not have to spare (although seeing Petitcru and all of her nieces and nephews in matching sweaters had, in fact, been very cute).

Still. Escaping to the Garde was, after all, what had been planting the percolating idea in the first place, and a visit to Tempesti had halfway solidified it for her. But if she was going to make the place comfortable, there were some improvements she could stand to make.

She had hesitated for a long time over this, fretting over whether she was destroying, in some way, the peaceful, isolated character of the rustic castle she'd come to think of as a sanctuary. But one especially chilly morning and finding, of all things, a golden camera washed up on the banks had made the decision for her at last.

Arrangements having been duly made, Joy, a few days later, awaited the Mauvian's arrival, looking down towards some city lights below made more glittering and more festive by holiday decorating. The uniform, of course, was always comfortable, but it felt more comfortable now, in the chill, than it ever had in summer. She looked the part of a yuletide Queen in red and green and gold and fur and with rosy cheeks made rosier by the brisk breezes.

She knew from watching Viatrix work on her ring that those clever cats did not need anything like hands to do what seemed to her like magic, but still, she had to quell a rising sense of skepticism that an electrician could function with paws. If Cuan was confident, why shouldn't she be, as well?

It did not quite occur to her to wonder if Cuan might show up without them, despite her experiences with Viatrix. Cuan had been so utterly catlike - an approving label, in Joy's mind - that the idea of imagining her in any other way had not yet entered into her mental arithmetic.

It took her a moment, in fact, to notice. But Joy was a girl's girl, and she reacted in the way that a girl's girl would, once she had squatted down and offered a hand - never quite sure how to treat a Mauvian, but secure in the fact that this one had already been amenable to pets. Perhaps this timing was due to her illuminated palm in turn lighting up Cuan's forehead as she reached out.

"You've changed up your look. New haircut? Lash extensions?" she said playfully.

She clapped her hands in excited delight.

"Oh my god! Can you do the thing? If you do it now I can take your hand going up. It always feels nice, you know, to go up hand-in-hand."

This was accompanied by a look of anticipation only slightly marred by the realization that she might be jumping the gun and assuming what was not true. But the idea, not having occurred to her before this instant, brought with it instantaneous feelings of both relief - that she would have hands to work with - and also admiration. She was not entirely sure how it was that Mauvians managed to become shapeshifters, but it was the sort of inexplicable, truly magic things that she would never get entirely sick of, no matter how jaded she was about the rest of the process.

She attempted to envision what a human-shaped Cuan would be like, and found herself completely unable to do so.

"I'll close my eyes," she said promptly, taking the additional step of covering them with her hands, like a child awaiting a Christmas gift.

She squealed, bouncing on her heels and extending Will Smith arms as if admiring a friend's finally-chosen wedding dress, or perhaps her decision to finally get the haircut of her dreams. Only more, of course.

"You are so adorable!" she said with sincere delight. "I love your outfit. And your hair. Does your hair do itself, too? I love how my hair does itself," she confided, gesturing at her own layered braids. It was certainly one of the better aspects of the unasked-for job. She extended a hand then, to clasp Cuan's in her own. "I hope you're not too cold," she added. "But if you are, let me know. I'll help you wrap up."

The warning hardly seemed necessary, as the Garde - although cool - was warmer by quite a bit than Destiny City. There was no snow on the ground, for one, although there was that dampness in the air that spoke of recently-melted frost, and they arrived amidst breezes off the water and the muted sounds of seagulls beneath grey skies, on top of the gatehouse - as usual - and next to the resident ghost - also as usual.

As was his habit, he took in Cuan's ears and tail with a glance and the sight of them meant that he afforded her the respect of a silent and formal greeting first, before engaging in the usual pantomime of kissing Joy's hand. As always, it was a formal gesture, detached, lacking affection; even Joy's participation in it seemed thoughtless.

"Cuan, this is Gouvernail. This is Cuan Oilean," she said promptly as she took her hand back, "and she's very generously here to help with outfitting the place a little more comfortably. For visitors," she added, with the sort of firmness that - if one knew the two of them better - might be immediately recognized as her asserting a truth that was unpleasant to him but must be accepted at some point.

The company of a ghost was apparently destined to be a shortlived novelty, as they left him behind almost immediately, Joy gathering her skirts in her hand to guide Cuan down the stairs and into the bailey below, chattering as she went.

"I'm trying to get the place set up to host visitors more often. Theoretically, you know, everyone has a place they can escape to - everyone like us, I mean -" this, with a gesture at their outfits, as if that said enough, and probably it did, "- but some of them aren't so nice to stay in, you know? I like being here - it's very peaceful - and I thought it might be good to restore it to a bit of its former purpose. It was a place to receive guests, pretty often, for the purposes of - oh, leisure. Fun. Relaxing. But times have changed, and people are going to be wanting to charge their phones. And maybe also some of those cordless heated blankets," she added, with another vague gesture, this time at the sky and general chill. "Since I'm sure they don't all want to sleep powered up."

They were making their way to a building set into the corner of the courtyard walls, smaller than the main keep but, like it, with tapestries and painted panes in the few, narrow windows, and like it, with a section of mosaic floor in front of the doors.

"I've been setting this room up as a sort of library - there's guest bedrooms, but I needed a place to keep stuff to do. Books, games." They entered the cool, dark, tidy little building, and she reached out to flick on a string of battery-operated lights, although even the narrow windows were supplying enough to see by. A few shelves contained a scanty selection of books and board games, as promised. "And I thought this might be an ideal place to try and set up a place to get power, if I can. But I have other options, if this won't work out. I'm not sure what your requirements are, but if you let me know, I could try and sort out what might be the best option."

She spoke cheerfully, briskly, somewhere between a friend confiding in a friend and a confident homeowner dealing with an amiable contractor. "Let me know if I can get you a drink," she added. "I guess it'd be nice to be able to run a tea kettle, too, but if I can use a camp stove, so can everyone else."

Conveniently using the flood of follow-up questions as an excuse not to address the Code one - an irrelevant concern, as far as Joy cared; she had, after all, verbally told the glowing football b*****d that she was doing what she wanted with the place and if it had problems it could kick rocks and do a better job drafting the next generation.

She commenced a little tour around the place, hitting the main points of keep, chapel, store rooms, roof; from the ramparts she pointed out the river and made some speculations as to the current based on what could be seen and her own experience with the boat. She showed her some of the maps of the place that Viatrix had managed on her own visit, including the labyrinth of underground corridors and a quick run-down of their nature and purpose - "But I'd prefer to avoid that, if possible, except what we'd absolutely need to get the stuff above ground going," she said simply, moving past it almost immediately in a way that indicated that this was not a topic open to negotiation.

It became clear very quickly that Joy had a sense of ownership about the place that was less pride than matter-of-fact: she had been charged with its care, and had decided to bend herself to executing the task with the competence she always strove to have. She was as well-versed in its immediate history as it was possible to be, and as knowledgeable of its current state as she could manage. Her mental catalogue of what had been repaired or repaired itself, and when, was at Cuan's disposal as they made their rounds, as well as a quick showcase of what anachronistic technology the place already had to boast - being only a few non-functional fountains set into the walls, and remarkably, a shower fed by hot water from underground somewhere.

They ended in the chilly shade of the overgrown gatehouse, looking down towards the broad river, where the gulls swept in erratic curves and occasionally dove towards something breaking the surface. A basket-shaped swing suspended from a branch near the water was tossed gently back and forth in the wind. "We could go down and have a closer look at the water, if you need it," she offered. "Or if there's anything else you particularly want or need to see."