((Taken from towards the end of anime - a difficult reality check for this revived muse))

[imagoodgirl]

[This pink haired, horned girl looks up, sad and a little confused.]

I thought I had a home to go to... With Kohta, Yuka, Mayu, and Wanta? [Lucy told her to go there. It's been the one option left in front of her.]

[She shakes her head a bit as she recalls the place she had been last.] Before that, there was a place I liked. Remember? I would have wanted to stay at Paixao, and wait for Papa, but now he's...gone...

[It still hurts, to even know this fact. It hurts more to admit it. Her eyes well up with tears.]

Miss Mun? D-Did you know this would happen? Is that why you thought about me...?

[This where Mun promptly tugs this cute muse into a warm and comforting embrace for a few. Maybe this will help her feel at least a little better before anyone arrives.

Perhaps it's best to wait to inform her on what happens next. Yeah, it's not good on her end right now, but things are likely to improve, fairly soon.]

Comments

[deadly_mind]

[This one hits very close to home for Nagi. He is reminded of Tot, and his younger self, at the same time... He knows the pain of being utterly abandoned. He hopes that she hasn't, and won't, be treated like an outcast because she's not 'normal,' much like he was ostracized for his unusual abilities, but realizes that it's fairly unlikely. People can be so cruel...He can be now, too, but not here.]

[He kind of wants to give her a hug, but that seems awkward given that they've never met.]

Things will get better. Maybe not right away, but you just have to hold on.

[imagoodgirl]

[Nana wipes a tear away, and then looks at the man.]

Hold on...? To what?

[She had just recently lost the only parent she ever had. It's obvious to see how pained she feels. Part of her doesn't want to believe he's dead, but she knows he won't be coming back. Her dreams of living a happy life with him had been crushed. It happened so fast...

Why did he have to go to Mariko? That question just now comes to mind, but it doesn't quite reach her voice. It's somewhat hard for her to speak.]

I miss him.

[A new tear rolls down her cheek.]

[deadly_mind]

[Sometimes being a telepath sucks. He's not as good as Schuldig, but he can pick up even an average person's thoughts if they're 'loud' enough. Sometimes people are practically screaming mentally... Yet another reason he hates crowds.]

[What is he supposed to say to a fellow orphan that's feeling much like he did years ago? That the woman who finally took him in was murdered in front of him? He channeled all the despair and anguish into a bitter rage at the world and those that had tormented and wronged him. He held onto that... He was fueled by nothing but revenge for years. Even now he hasn't let it go...]

[But that's not the kind of thing he's going to say to this poor kid.]

It's... kind of something you have to figure out for yourself. It's hard, I know.

[Awkward pause is awkward. Nagi is such a socially inept teenager that it hurts.]

Um... Do you want a hug?

[imagoodgirl]

[By myself?] On my own?

[Nana remembers what being alone feels like. It's the worst, being alone and separated from Papa. She was so worried for him, every now and then.

Papa said in his message that he had disobeyed orders to kill her. He got her out of that horrible facility in secret.

Still, he died anyway--along with that bad girl, who was bad as Lucy was to Nana once.]

[She hesitates on his offer, at first. Who is he? No one who didn't flinch at the sight of her horns, this Nana knew in the very least.]

I don't want to be alone. [The grieving girl sniffles.] Mister?

[deadly_mind]

[No, her horns don't bother him. He saw plenty of strange things at Rosenkreuz, and she seems like she would fit right in. A little too well, perhaps. In his experience, such features generally hinted at powers well beyond anything a normal human could do. He'd been underestimated many times there, in fact, because he had been a rather normal looking boy. That usually didn't go well for them.]

[... She's better off alone than in that place, however. He wouldn't even try to send someone like her that way.]

[So yes, if she wants a hug, he will reciprocate, but he won't make any moves toward her to initiate one.]

I hope you won't be alone. I know how hard that is. But I don't know what will happen to you. I don't know what's going to happen to me.

[But he's stronger now. It's not like the way things were before.]

It's Nagi, by the way. Nagi Naoe.

[imagoodgirl]

Nana. That's my name. [She wipes away some of her tears. Was he going to be her new friend...? He seemed very nice, and friends were always good at stopping the loneliness.] M-Maybe nothing bad will happen to us.

[Her optimism has come back around, but it's barely there.]

[deadly_mind]

[Nagi's not going to burst her optimism bubble, as fragile as it is. Even though his outlook tends to be infinitely more pessimistic. Of course, he's in the business of making bad things happen to other people, so... Yeah, he's really a terrible person. People like Nana actually make him feel kinda bad about that. This is one of the reasons why he doesn't want to take orders from whatever tyrant Eszett is currently shoving on them. Defying their orders to protect people... well, that's gotten him into trouble before.]

[Politics. Ugh.]

[He nods.]

Are you from Japan, too?

[imagoodgirl]

[As shaken up and heartbroken as Nana is, she starts to trust Nagi. His company being better than none at all, she decides.]

Yes. I was born there, in a place away from most people. My first home...

[It's hard to forget a place of pain, and isolation. It's where she had bonded with Kurama, the chief director she called Papa.]

Papa was the only one who cared for me there, and told me everything would be all right. [Her voice cracks at the end of that sentence.]

[deadly_mind]

I was born in Japan, too. I don't remember my real parents. They died when I was very young. For a while I was homeless, living on the street...

[Nagi decides to take a seat. It's not he really plans on going anywhere for a while, anyway. He talks about his own early childhood in a very detached sort of tone.]

Eventually a man found me and brought me to an orphanage. A nun there took care of me for a while. She was the first person that I remember ever caring about me... she made sure I was fed, and had clothes without too many holes in them, and had a real bed to sleep in. It wasn't perfect, but it was paradise compared to huddling in cold back alleys.

[She was also using him, and other children with particular talents, to commit crimes while under her hypnosis, but he doesn't typically volunteer that information.]

[imagoodgirl]

[Nana seats herself across from him. Even though she wouldn't really feel aching in her prosthetic limbs, she'd have an easier time facing him at eye level.

She's attentive as Nagi shares about his past. To her surprise, he's willing to share more than her. The type of place brings a memory that's pleasant to recall.]

I've never lived in an orphanage... but I remember seeing one with my first friend. At the world called Paixao. The kids I saw outside were playing with each other. [She recalls her brief time with Kakyuu fondly. She was a wonderful, gentle, and kind-hearted lady.]

[She very well understands what Nagi explains.] Sleeping in pajamas on a warm bed is very nice. Much better than sleeping on a cold hard floor, without any...

[Living in the facility, Nana had been chained up to a wall in a big empty room for most of the time, without clothes. She prefers to not talk about that.]

[deadly_mind]

[Nagi doesn't need telepathy to know that there's a lot more to that darker scenario, but he's not going to pry. He's sure she doesn't want to dwell on it, and it's none of his business, anyway.]

It was nice while it lasted. The orphanage, I mean. The next place I went to was a lot less friendly.

[He shakes his head, dismissing looming thoughts of the nun's murder, the destruction of the orphanage, and a sudden, familiar surge of anger toward the person who ruined all of it. There would be a time and place for that.]

Paixao? That sounds familiar somehow. I think I've heard that name before.

[imagoodgirl]

[Naturally, she would have asked what happened after the orphanage, but what Nagi said took her by surprise. And she became curious.]

R-Really? How?

[This lead to remembering the time she first ended up in Paixao.] On my second day in the outside world, I found it. It was a little scary at first, knowing I wasn't by the beach anymore.

After I tripped and fell, I met Kakyuu. [Nana misses her too, as it could probably be heard how her voice softens a bit when mentioning of her. Out of everyone she's befriended, Kakyuu was of the few she adored the most.]

[deadly_mind]

[Nagi shrugs noncommittally.]

I spent some time in a Nexus about... well, six years ago according to the mun. Anyway, I saw a lot of people from different worlds, and overheard a lot of conversations about them. I might have known someone who went there.

[Talking about the Nexus is much easier than his early childhood. He wasn't involved enough to get into any personal entanglements there, unlike some of the others. He was a casual observer, for the most part. There might have been popcorn involved, sometimes.]

[imagoodgirl]

[What he describes has her thinking. All the heartache and grieving will be taking a backseat in Nana's mind.]

...Would Paixao be like this Nexus place? People from different worlds were there too.

[At his mention of meeting someone who might have been there, she thinks of those she bonded with.] Who did you know? Was it Urd? Genie? Aladdin? Maybe Timon, or Woody? One of them said they all lived in Paixao a long time.

[She hopes they didn't miss her as much as she misses them, sometimes. Nana remembers that there was plenty to worry about already.]

[deadly_mind]

Very similar, I think.

I heard of them, but I didn't know any of them.

[It would probably be relevant to say that he mostly has been associated with homicidal maniacs, womanizers, and homicidal maniacs who were also womanizers. All in all, not a crowd that a nice girl would be hanging out with.]

Sorry... I know that's not too helpful.

[But he rather likes Nana, and doesn't want to scare her off.]

Now that Thanksgiving weekend is over, in addition to not feeling sick anymore - I'm back!

[imagoodgirl]

Oh... [She frowned a little.] It’s all right.

They’ve all been nice to me. Urd, Genie, and Woody the most. After Kakyuu had been sent back to her world... [Nana stops there, for she doesn’t want to think back on how scared and sad she was when her first friend disappeared. The slightest trace of a smile comes to her as another good memory of Paixao comes to mind.]

I liked Namine too, and Woody’s friend Bullseye. I remember drawing pictures with them. And Woody. [Why couldn’t I just stay with them? Then again, why can’t she just stay with Mayu, Wanta, Kohta, and Yuka? They weren’t so bad either.]

Same, minus the sick... Glad.you're feeling better!

[deadly_mind]

It sounds like you made a lot of friends.

[With someone else, Nagi might have sounded bitter, but with Nana he just sounds thoughtful. He's... actually happy for her, for the fact that she has those memories. It's not as if he would do well with a lot if friends, himself, anyway. Certainly not nice ones, at least.]

You might find some of them again. And I'm sure you'll make new ones, too, wherever you end up.

[After all, if he likes her and she's nice to him, any decent person should want to be friends with her, in his opinion. He's not used to people being nice to, or even noticing him.]

Me too. No more icky, nasty cases of yuck!

[imagoodgirl]

[She nods, and looks to him. This man was kind to her, and she didn't want to be left alone. After living so long of being in isolation for most of her life, Nana had grown to hate it.]

Could we be friends too? [Hope glimmers in those pink eyes. Please stay. Please don't leave.]

\o/

[deadly_mind]

[Ugh. He's not sure he can say no to that look, even if he wanted to. He doesn't want to. It's been proven to him over and over again that it's a terrible idea to get too fond of anyone. Even here. He just can't get rid of that last little shred of hope, when it comes down to it.]

I...

...

If you want to be, sure.

[He won't blame her for changing her mind later, if she learns more about him, and what he's done in the past.]

[imagoodgirl]

Yes, I want to be. [She'll be wrapping both arms around him now. After enduring just as much as she can stand within the past few hours, prior to finding herself here--she hasn't been sure on what to do.

Nana had been at her breaking point. Now that she's made a new friend who understands her pain and heartache, she won't want to leave his side anytime soon.

She'll try not to be too clingy. It's so hard for her to cope by herself, since she's lost the one person who had been the center of her dreams, her happiness. Her future.]

[deadly_mind]

...

[Crawford will have a fit. Schuldig will probably tease him. Farfarello... won't care. At all. But really, whose business is it if he makes some friends?]

Okay.

[He settles his arms around her - an awkward gesture at first, but he seems to get the idea after a moment. He'll sit with her for as long as she needs him to.]

[imagoodgirl]

[Nana hugs Nagi a bit tightly.] Thank you. I-I...

[It's hard to talk. She had wanted to tell him a little on what it was like at her first home, but she stops. And decides that maybe she wouldn't want to say too much about Papa, at least for now.]

[viraltentacles]

That was the most likely reason, yes.

[imagoodgirl]

[Nana blinks out her tears as she looks toward the hooded person. Then back to Mun, whose look is deeply apologetic.

This truth, in addition the very recent loss, hurts so much inside. Papa's dead. Papa. Is dead. He's not coming back, as much as she wishes for that not to be true. Nana's head lowers as it remains hard for her to speak.]

And she knew...he would go to her. [That bad girl, who said she was Papa's real daughter. Papa chose her over Nana.]

[viraltentacles]

Of course, she would have known how everything was going to go.

[imagoodgirl]

Everything?

[Those sad, sad eyes widen. Is that why Miss Mun never said anything about finding Papa again?

She doesn't know what this man is about, but she refuses to feel she's been wronged, once more.]

She isn't bad! I know she isn't! She's always been nice to me... She wanted to stay safe, from the girl who tried to kill me.

She would have killed Miss Mun, without mercy.

[viraltentacles]

I highly doubt they would be able to do that. Now she might have been able to kill you, but not your mundane.

[imagoodgirl]

[He didn't know anything about her kind. Of course not.

She's told others before, in a world that's not her own.]

Vectors can cut through anything. Anyone.

[viraltentacles]

Only if they can catch them, correct?

[imagoodgirl]

If they're in range of them...

[Wait a second. Who is this man? How did he-] How did you know?