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Nevertheless, it was something he came to appreciate. Besides helping to mark the passage of time, it made each season more beautiful for having the others to compare it to, and for the threat of constant change.

And it was a beautiful place, too, even without the seasons. The Garden was not as much a garden as it had been when the sky was new, and when Sendou hadn't yet had to ferry souls across the way. At one point it really had been a true garden, though the plants that grew it were some of them strange. Then the souls had come, and those to attend and govern them, and the buildings that were needed to house them came with them. When Elirian became imprisoned, more inhabitants still flocked to the Garden, and it became less a garden with a few dwellings and more like a village, and then less like a village and more like a small scenic town. The waterways had been kept, and modified for transport. There were still plants everywhere--- trees leaning out into the water; bushes clustered around a walk; the climbing ivy that threatened to consume entire walls of the oldest buildings.

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Some of the larger buildings boasted gardens of their own--- gardens within the Garden. There might still have been strange plants here. Beckett had forgotten too much of the mortal realm to know which of the Garden's trees were endemic.

The Bureaucracy was easy to identify, even for those who were unfamiliar with the Garden itself. The buildings were neat, and the area better organized than most, without so much ivy threatening to take over the walls. Even the stone walkways were swept once every morning, by the lesser scribes, who had the time for that sort of thing. The buildings that housed the scribes themselves were less grand than those used for business, for practical reasons. Some were little better than dormitories, though if one was a part of the Bureaucracy, indolence was not encouraged anyways. Beckett's own quarters were exquisite, as befit his rank, or at least they had been when he had taken them.

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Over time, he had cleared away much of his predecessor's clutter. The outside was still more ornamental than suited his tastes, but the interior was almost startlingly austere. The whole dwelling was almost eaten up by space. Everything that took up room in his quarters were of practical use, or occasionally of sentimental value, though the latter type was rare indeed. It was always immaculately clean. When Beckett was particularly worried or unhappy, it tended to be even cleaner than usual.

He made a point of washing and changing into his sleeping robes before easing himself into his bed, despite his weariness from the events of the day. There was never any excuse for sloppiness, least of all exhaustion. But despite the way the tiredness dragged at his limbs and at his eyelids, sleep would not come. His mind simply would not rest. It kept turning back to the issue of their missing lord, of all the difficulty and uncertainty they all faced.

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What Revel said had not been wrong, exactly. Elirian had little true power left, that he had not passed onto some or another of the Garden's permanent residents. However, those residents were sanctioned to do as they did only because they were acting in his stead, and this only because if no one did their jobs, then much of the world would be facing some very interesting and unsavory problems.

And the powers were still tied to Elirian himself, since they were his to begin with. What would they do if they were suddenly no longer able to do their jobs at all? A god could not be killed, but there were worse things one could suffer than death. There were even ways to disable or detain a god, to bend one to your power, if someone was corrupt and foolhardy and power-hungry enough to make it happen. The prerequisite, of course, was that one usually had to have quite a bit of power in the first place to procure the means by which to do so, but it had been done before, with lesser gods. The consequences were invariably disastrous, even when the god had been very minor indeed.

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None of these thoughts sat comfortably in Beckett's mind. Loath as he was to admit it, his life since joining the Bureaucracy had been a relatively uncomplicated affair. There was seldom anything worse to worry about than a surplus of paperwork or a missing file, even if there was sometimes an astronomical amount of surplus paperwork--- pardon the pun. Even when he had come into his current position, things hadn't changed so vastly. Now, in the space of less than a day, his world had been turned upside-down. Part of him still refused to believe it.

Nothing had happened yet, really, besides a great deal of speaking and some speculation and much trying on of clothes. It was the consequences that bothered him. What this implied...

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He did eventually fall into a fitful, restless sleep as his worrying gradually became less coherent. He felt no better for having had it when he next woke. He sat up with a groan, and then groaned again when he saw his face in the mirror. He looked like a mess. This was more of an insult than it might have been to someone else, for Beckett was not messy by nature. Merely the sight of his apartments would be proof of that. All the more reason to get up now, he supposed, though he had never been one for sleeping in either. He was, as a general rule, one of the early to bed, early to rise types. Even when he slept late, it was impossible not to wake early.

His first priority was to get his appearance in order. It would take more than his usual routine of washing his face and cleaning his teeth and straightening out his hair. He had done all those things, and his face still looked unpleasant, even if his appearance was no longer haggard. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, which gave them a sunken look, and his hair was inclined to stray despite his having combed it out more than once.

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He sighed. It would have to do. He began the process of braiding it into the queue in which he normally wore it. It was part of the standard dress code for the Bureaucracy, but he wore it even on his holidays, for the convenience and neatness it afforded him. A ponytail was the other option available to his staff, but Beckett thought that it rather lacked something of the orderliness he desired.

He donned his robes, after a moment's deliberation. If Senna wanted him to wear the mortal clothes, he could change when he arrived at the ferry. As impractical as it might have been, he wanted to hold onto the comforts of home a little longer.

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As he left the grounds of the Bureaucracy, however, he realized that he had no idea how to find Sendou's ferry, or to call it to him. A lack of foresight was not usually one of his faults, but his mind had been otherwise occupied last night. Furthermore, he had never had to make use of Sendou's services before. Beckett couldn't remember any occasion on which he had actually left the Garden since he had first arrived, now that he thought about it. Sendou and his ferry were such a natural part of the Garden that Beckett had never thought to wonder before at how to find them.

Fortunately for him Senna had both the practical mind and the experience with the ferryman's services to have sent for him already. They cruised along just as Beckett was wondering how to find them. The weaver waved to him from the prow. Sendou himself gave only a deep nod in recognition, which Beckett returned. The ferryman said nothing, but that was to be expected. Many who rode the ferry professed to forgetting he was there sometimes.

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“Come on aboard,” Senna said cheerfully. Beckett boarded the ferry with as much grace as he could. He had enough practice getting into boats, and the ferry was large enough to be quite steady upon the water, but even then it was hard to make the act look completely effortless. He took a moment to steady himself, then sat perched on the edge of a seat. Senna peered at him under the shadows of the awning.

“Didn't sleep, huh?” she said. He didn't bother to answer. “You're not wearing the clothes I gave you either. I trust you have them with you, at least?” To this he nodded, and showed her the bundle which he had been carrying. It had some of his essential personal items in it, besides the clothes. Satisfied with this, the weaver turned away, only to turn back immediately as she was struck with a thought. “We'll need to do something about your hair. I didn't think of it before, but—-”

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“Is there something wrong with my hair?” Beckett asked, his voice sharper than he had meant to sound. Even so, he touched the braid self-consciously. Senna shook her head.

“Not exactly, no... It's clean, which is all that matters to you, I guess. But most males--- and I really do mean the vast majority--- don't have hair so long as yours.” Beckett was frowning, and he could see her read the frown, trying to think of a way to convince him. “You'll want to blend in as well as you can... and short hair is easier to take care of. Doesn't get in the way. No need for elaborate morning rituals.” Nevermind that he might actually enjoy those rituals, which he did. She could tell he was unconvinced. She sighed, and with the air of someone saying something she hadn't wanted to have to say, she leaned in and told him in a hushed voice, “With a face like yours, Beckett, if you keep the hair you'll probably be mistaken for a woman.” If it had merely been of a length to brush his shoulders, or even a little longer, that might not have been an issue. But Beckett's hair threatened to reach past his hips soon.

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Beckett was tall, even for a man, but it was true that he was built rather slender. With all the other suggestions of maleness from his dress and his bearing, his features passed as male, but they might yet be mistaken for female once removed from all that. His face wasn't nearly as appealing on a woman, but it was far from impossible. And manners, as Senna went on to tell him, had gotten coarser over the years. It was true that his voice was male, and his manner of dress would be male, but the hair would look highly unusual regardless.

He told himself that it was the issue of hygiene that swayed him, but Beckett wasn't sure how true it was. There was no getting it cut until after they'd touched down in the mortal realm, however. Senna certainly couldn't do it, and was wise enough not to try, especially on a moving boat. Not that Beckett would have let her either. If he was going to get a haircut, it would have to be a good one.

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All of these changes to his appearance... Beckett wondered if he was going to look like himself at all anymore after this. He feared that he would find a stranger, who merely bore some resemblance to him in the set of his face, looking back at him from the mirror. He reminded himself that it was all in service to the Lord of Stars, but part of him wondered that so many cosmetic changes in his person could be required for that.

The ferry drifted through the main canal. Familiar districts gave way to unfamiliar ones at the fringes of the Garden, where the plants grew more thickly and the buildings were fewer in number. Then, gradually, there were no buildings at all. They passed into an especially well-wooded glen, surrounded entirely by weeping willows tall enoug to obscure the sky above, their drooping branches brushing along the water's surface. Here, the ferry slowed, and Sendou addressed them for the first time: “Where do you wish to go?” His voice was the cool of the clear pools in summer, soft and deep and soothing.

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Again Beckett found himself having to rely on Senna's guidance. She whispered something in the boatman's ear and he nodded, then aligned the ferry a particular way through the willows and rowed on. “Close your eyes,” Senna said.

“Why?” Becket said.

“Just do it. Otherwise you'll make yourself sick.” She had closed her eyes. Beckett didn't know what she meant by it, but it wasn't a great deal of effort for him to go along with it, so he did.

When he opened them, he was on a beach somewhere. The sun was beating down on him from above, and the air smelled faintly of salt. Birds wheeled overhead, calling down to them. When he shifted his feet, the sand crunched softly as it moved. He had the distinct impression that he had slept, even though he had resolved to close his eyes for but a moment, and hadn't been the least bit drowsy when he did.

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Beside him, Senna stretched languidly, yawning in the process.

“Is it always like that?” he asked.

“What, the sleeping? Mhm, yeah. That's why I told you to close your eyes. Think about it--- the only ways in or out are to sleep, to shoot up, or to die or be reborn. The most peaceful of those all involve havin your eyes closed. You could have kept them open and had a really bad trip, but I figured you'd want to skip that experience.” She made a face, as if this was something that actually happened to her. Knowing her, Beckett wasn't surprised.

He looked around in earnest now, trying to get his bearings, but found that his eyes refused to focus. He had originally attributed it to his general disorientation from having woken up, or come out of whatever stupor their means of travel had necessitated. However, the blurs in his vision refused to resolve into anything even after he rubbed his eyes and pinched himself.

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“Is there something wrong?” Senna asked. He turned to look at her, but the best that he could make out was a dark shape where her hair must have been. Watching her move made him dizzy, and he wobbled precariously. She caught his arm to steady him. “Hey, what's going on?”

“Do... do you usually experience vision problems at first?” Beckett asked shakily.

“Nnnnooo,” Senna said. He wished he could see her face, to read her expression. He wished he could see anything, really. Her tone was not the least bit reassuring. He began to wonder if this was going to continue for the rest of his time in the mortal realm. He could barely see at all; it was as if he was blind. He wouldn't be of any use to anyone like this.