After dinner Gabrielle went in search of Joxer, who was back out in the garden trying to meditate. She had been trying to teach him how, but whenever he stopped thinking he wound up falling asleep. He had at least progressed to the point where he could sleep sitting up instead of instantly tumbling over to the ground, and for Joxer that was probably good progress. He was asleep now. Gabrielle tapped him gently on the shoulder.

"I wasn't sleeping," he said without opening his eyes.

"Okay."

"No, really, I wasn't. I was kind of...not there." He did open his eyes now, blinking them and shaking his head a little. "It was weird. But a good weird."

Gabrielle was surprised. It sounded like he was getting the point. "Wow," she said for lack of anything better, and climbed up on the rock behind him. The sky was growing dark, and now that the moon was waning its cold light no longer blotted out the stars and they glowed imperiously across the bowl of the sky. Joxer loved looking at the sky, and at times like this Gabrielle could see why. "Wow," she said again, honestly.

"It's really clear tonight." Joxer looked up, his head tilted at an inquisitive angle. "What do you really think, Gabrielle? About staying here, living in the palace, working for Nebula?"

"It'll be different." She sighed, and looked into the oncoming night. "But a good different. We'll have more time to just enjoy ourselves, instead of always running. Heck, I'll even have enough time to start writing again."

"It'd make a great story, wouldn't it?" Joxer said.

"What would?"

"Any of it."

"A story, huh?" Gabrielle gathered him into her arms and leaned back. "Okay, try this one. Once upon a time there was a little farmgirl who went off to see the world. And she saw many wonders and had lots of adventures. And many terrible things happened to her, but also many wonderful things, and one of the most wonderful things of all was that she won the heart of a handsome Athenian prince, and they were inseparable ever afterwards."

Joxer's smile was barely visible in the twilight. "Did they live happily ever after?"

"We'll see." Gabrielle nuzzled him affectionately and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "We'll see."