you've been acting awful tough lately

[reassures]

Date & Time: The 8th, from 12pm - 3pm
Location: Outside town
Characters: Nill and YOU
Summary: Nill promised to meet an anonymous person on the network, and has decided to send smoke signals with cigarettes to find them. Also action spam.
Warnings: None! Will be updated if needed.

[It's a strange day that finds Nill smoking during daylight hours, but one way or another she's found herself doing exactly that. Small promises made and easy modes of identification, she supposes - she'll end up going through half a pack by the end of this, but it's worth it if she can actually manage to help the person she promised to help.

Even so, it's not difficult to tell that it's a strange sight, a blond girl bundled up, sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree beside one of the better-known ways to town, just... smoking. She doesn't appear to be going anywhere, apparently comfortable where she is, though she smiles at anyone that spares her a glance while they're on their way. She'll be there for most of the early afternoon, from noon to about three, and will welcome anyone that feels like sitting with her.

Hopefully it won't decide to snow while she's sitting there. It's cold enough out as it is, and a new layer isn't going to make her stay terribly pleasant.]

((ooc: Telepathy permissions!))

Comments

[reassures]

[kgjhdakjh oh no. Nill instantly feels a little bad, but at the same time she can't help but giggle, if a bit sheepishly. She takes the cigarette from him, and pats his back twice, briefly.]

I'm sorry. I should have given you better warning.

[duplicitoussight]

No, no-- [cough cough] --it's not Nill's fault...!

[He waves a hand.]

I was too curious for my own good. I admire your iron tastebuds now.

[reassures]

I still don't like the taste very much, actually. But I'm used to it.

[She takes another drag, but like last time she's quick to wave the smoke away to spare his poor lungs.]

Are you okay?

[duplicitoussight]

I'll be fine, I'll be fine. [He glances her way with a small smile.]

What're you hanging around, looking tough for anyway?

[reassures]

I promised to meet someone here.

[Her wings would flutter if they weren't stuffed into her jacket. As it is she just looks a little embarrassed.]

Do I look tough?

[duplicitoussight]

[He giggles a bit.]

... ah, no, I take it back. Nill's too cute to be intimidating in any form.

[reassures]

[kano u lil shit. Nill doesn't really look any less embarrassed, but she doesn't look bothered, either.]

Thank you?

[SHE HAS NO IDEA WHAT TO SAY TO THAT, AND IT SHOWS... people don't usually go around calling her cute.]

[duplicitoussight]

[Kano can tell by her reaction. It makes him laugh, loud.]

Well, well, there's no need to be shy about it! Acting like that only increases Nill's charm.

1/2

[reassures]

[HOW DOES SHE DEAL WITH THIS. Geeze, he's--]

Worse than Yosuke...

[reassures]

[Except, she hadn't meant to 'say' that, and it shows about five seconds after she does.

HGKDJAGHD]

[duplicitoussight]

[NOPE. NOPE TOO LATE HE'S LEANING IN]

Yosuke? Who's that, who's that?

[reassures]

[LEANING AWAY THE SLIGHTEST BIT... Kano why this.]

He's-- someone I need to get back to. I haven't seen him in a long time.

[Not the right version of him, anyway.]

[duplicitoussight]

[Ah. He gets it.]

Ah~ For a moment there I thought he was someone else to you. Well, well... [It's unlikely, but--] ... once this is all over, you'll be able to see him again soon enough!

[reassures]

He's very important to me. I promised him I wouldn't leave him.

...I don't know if I will get to see him again when this is over.

[It's super unlikely, and she knows that much. She appreciates the attempt at reassurance though, even if she doesn't look totally comfortable. At this point... Kano already knows she's a telepath, and that she can use a gun, of all things. What's the point in skirting around this topic?]

We aren't from the same world-- and even if we were, I haven't been to my world in a long time.

[duplicitoussight]

[At that Kano's smile slips to one more subdued. He understands these sorts of promises.]

... I see, then. If that's the case... both of you were taken from your worlds to a new one. Right? So seeing him would be a difficult task.

[reassures]

Right. ...If I include my own world, this is the fourth that I've been to.

[She smiles, and takes one more drag from her cigarette, before dropping what's left of it (mostly filter) near her shoes.]

But I made a promise. So even if it's unlikely, I'll keep moving like this until I go back there.

[duplicitoussight]

[The fourth? That gets a surprised look from him. He's heard of people stopping at a world before winding up in Exsilium, but he hasn't thought that it'd be possible for someone to be taken to so many places.]

... ah, Nill? How long have you been traveling?

[reassures]

[It's a difficult question to answer. Not because she has an issue with it - in this case, she doesn't. She's just not totally sure of the answer, between various time shenanigans and the years being different in different worlds. The easiest way to answer it is probably with her age, but even that's... difficult.]

The last time I was in my own world, I think I was fifteen-years-old.

Right now, I'm about twenty.

[duplicitoussight]

[If he thinks about the idea of world-traveling for too long, it becomes something uncomfortable. It's not the concept of it--more impossible things have happened. Rather, it's the method of it that unsettles him so.]

That long? [A beat.] That's a lonely way to move forward.

[reassures]

It's very lonely at times.

[A soft smile spreads across her face, but it's a little sad, too. She takes one more, small drag from her cigarette, and then lets it drop to the ground, where she pushes it into the snow with her boot. She exhales and waves the smoke away again, before lacing her fingers together on her lap.]

...When it first began, I didn't know I was in a world that wasn't my own. They did something to our heads-- A chip, I think. We forgot everything that wasn't there. But for awhile I was happy. I lived with three boys, and it was wonderful.

[She looks up at Kano, and the smile is still in place, but it feels... off. This whole thing feels strange.]

That world fell apart, and we escaped. We remembered our lives.

After a little while longer, they all died-- and none of them came back.

[She lifts a hand, wiping away a tear that threatens to spill before it has the chance.]

Yosuke disappeared, but he came back like he promised he would. He remembered me in his own world, even if it was only dreams. So I need to keep my promise, too.

[duplicitoussight]

[A life like that... he isn't sure if he can imagine it. Traveling between worlds, whether or not memories would follow--all that sort of stuff was painful to think about. He'd rather not dwell on it if he could help it while they were here, to leave it ill-defined and distant.

But what he does understand is the promise. And in that instant of understanding, his thoughts wander back to a hazy day blurred by tears.

Promise me--

Something buried deep down hurts at that. Even if it's a promise that can't be kept, abandoning it would be a cowardly thing to do.]

He's pretty lucky to have a girl like you, then! [He's partially teasing her. But, in all honesty, whoever this Yosuke was, he was fortunate to have a friend who would travel this far to meet him again. He hoped that the guy would hold tightly onto her when they met again and remember that.

(don't let him be a liar)]

Well, well... when the two of you meet again, you'll have a lot to tell him, won't you?

[reassures]

[Even Nill doesn't like to dwell on it. It's not a pleasant way to live, but with her life thus far, it's the only way to live. Anything else is...

There are no words. If Nill was offered the chance to go back to her own world, she couldn't take it because it might mean forgetting everything, and the idea of what was more than she could bare.

Kano's a sweet kid, and the partial teasing makes her giggle, even if it's only a little. Despite the implications, she nods, because well... it's true, really, even if Nill couldn't define what exactly they were supposed to be. She still loved him.]

There will be so much to tell him. When I tell him I got to be an adviser to a group, he'll think I'm a comic book hero.

I'll tell him about all of you.

[That's probably the thing that hurts the most right now, honestly. The world she's trying to get back to isn't a good place, and she couldn't stand to try to bring anyone else there with her. When she got to see Yosuke again, she'd say goodbye to... everyone. Kano, Kido, Kaneis, Nico, Jesse and Lisbeth, Stan... Lily and Seras, too. It was the only thing she didn't want.]

...I've never told anyone that.

[There was only one person still alive that was fully aware of it, too.

But she doesn't feel too oddly about it, having told Kano. And Nill realizes, then, that that's part of why she likes him as much as she does.

It's because she's a liar too.]

[duplicitoussight]

[He lets out a small laugh in response.] Don't worry.

[Kano tilts his head a little, pressing a finger to his mouth.]

... I won't tell anyone else. It'll be a secret, just between the two of us.

[He hopes that they'll all remember when they go back. It's an unreasonable demand, maybe, but it's all he can cling to.]

[reassures]

[She hasn't seen him do that before, but she gets the feeling it's at least a little normal for him. Something he might be used to doing, even if maybe he hasn't done it as much here.

Nill seems no less grateful for it.]

Thank you for keeping my secret.

[She means it. In a way, Kano officially knows more about her than her not-quite-boyfriend does.]

[duplicitoussight]

It's not a big deal, not a big deal at all. [He laughs.] I wouldn't be a very good hero if I didn't, would I?