[The gesture, and the words, do their trick -- or at least a trick, for Venat finds herself laughing as she (again, quite awkwardly) returns the gesture.]

I must say, everything went just as I had hoped it would, except for my inexplicable failure to dissipate into the aether as I spent the last energy within my soul. And I must defend myself by saying I had no way to prepare for an event that by all rights should have been quite impossible!