Nanoha Takamachi running away from Arisa and Suzuka again. This was her lot in life now. Eventually this was going to come to a head. How possibly long could Nanoha keep this secret anyways? And whenever the two tried to question she'd 'magically' need to go suddenly. Eventually was not 'now' however.
She runs and runs down the road until she gets down to the Harbor District and her frantic run in the early weekend sunday slows down into a jog and then a walk as she whews. Away.
"Can't keep running..." she mutters.
Raising Heart began beeping warnings about elevated heart rate and blood pressure. Yeah, yeah she just bolted like a ferret down a slide. And she knows that's fast.
She takes a break on a bench for now. Keeping an eye out for the two friends. In case they decided they could keep up with her fast running speed. Which was pretty fast, given her early morning drills!
Nanoha isn't the only girl here, one bench over one of her classmates is sitting, looking at the sky with sad eyes. When she hears the sound of footstep, she looks over, and spots Nanoha. "Takamachi-san." She greets softly, the sadness permeating her voice. "What are you running from?" Whatever concern she may have shown is overshadowed by Ruby Rose's statement. <If there is any risk of danger to my Master, speak now or I will treat you as a conspirator.>
That's a loaded question. What is she running from? She sort of deflates. "My two best friends know 'something is up' with me. And they keep asking questions. And prying. And it's not like I can tell them anything is actually up with me." she says with a sigh. "So I run because I don't want to answer the questions OR lie to them I guess." she admits.
Then there's the voice of an Intelligent Device that is not Raising Heart.
"What? No. No danger." she says.
She looks to Nicola. "Nicola-san how are you? I didn't know you had a device until that time with Fate-chan..." she says softly with a soft half-smile, remembering the whole bout with Fate and the dark energy.
"What's thier name?" she asks in relation to the device.
"Lying to your friends is never fun." Nicola says this like she's far too used to it. Her accent is weaker than it was, but she's still obviously foreign. Of course, Nanoha knows the source of the accent. "When we got here, it was chaos and I'd lost my device." It's obviously leaving out some details, but it's true. "When that happened I'd just gotten her back." <I am Ruby Rose>
Nanoha Takamachi nrg. "I overdid it that night. I used something I'd been practicing but it kicked harder than the sims I've been using." she admits. "A new spell I designed, based on one of my others." she says with a nod. Then a pause. "Oh! Right. Um. Fate-chan is okay, too! She's staying with friends." she says with a nod. "I want to visit her again soon." she says softly, looking down a bit, quietly then. "Oh, Hello Ruby Rose." she says with a warm smile, looking back up.
"That...must had been terrible to deal with.... Raising Heart is my friend. If she got lost...." she mutters a bit with a nod.
"Well I'd be sad!" she says softly.
There's an affirmative < Beep > from somewhere on Nanoha's person.
"Yeah, it was awful." Nicola looks back up at the sky with sad eyes. Apparently she's just not in a great mood. "I'm glad to hear Fate-chan is okay." She says softly, sighing faintly. She takes a sip out of the bottle of water she brought with her, and only then seems to remember she has it with her. "Uhh... do you need a drink?"
Nanoha Takamachi thinks. "Yeah, I'd like a drink! I was actually on my way to get something to eat and drink when.. well my friends ambushed me." she mutters. She head tilts though. "You seem sad. Is everything okay?" she asks softly. "Is Bryony-san okay?" she wonders, indeed, she isn't with Nicola right now!
She gets to her feet and walk over and extends her hand. "Come on, we can find a place here for a drink somewhere!" she says with a smile.
"She's fine, I think she's doing homework." Nicola answers the far less important question first, getting up and grabbing the offered hand, still looking at the sky. "I miss home." She admits the source of her sadness, a genuine pain in her voice. It's been a while, but homesickness can last a long time when you're out of your element.
Nanoha Takamachi head tilts. "What was home like?" she asks softly. "I mean. Your home." she asks, softly. "I asked Yuuno a bit about it. He said there's lots of ruins?" she asks softly as she walks along with Nicola. She does, however, keep that hand grasped to hers- if she lets her. Nanoha knows this helps her when she's feel sad and vurneable.
"But I'm sure there's more to it than that, and Yuuno isn't from there, so, he probably would see it differently from you anyways." she says with a soft smile.
"I'd like to hear about it, if you're willing to talk while we walk." she says softly.
Nicola takes a moment to think about home, about what to say about it. "There's not a lot of water, you can't drink the surface water so we relied on a system of underground lakes and rivers to get drinking water. A lot of sand, the sky was red, not blue." It's not really a coherent explanation of what it's like, she's just thinking aloud.
"She grips Nanoha's hand a little more tightly. "Most people there worked on mining something they call Ruby. It's really valuable and the few spaceports we had were used to sell Ruby and buy stuff we couldn't produce ourselves."
Nanoha Takamachi walks along and stops at a vending machine, she looks around and nods. She slides her bill in and asks. "What would you like?" she asks, motioning at the selection inside the machine.
She purses her lips and thinks. "So... a desert planet." she says softly. "With a red sky..." she seems to be squinting, trying to imagine this in her head as she waits for Nicola to decide what she wants.
"...and you can't drink water on the surface? Is it toxic?" she asks curiously.
She thinks this through and nods a bit. "I bet it's really pretty." she says softly with a matter of fact nod. "Ruby-- I have a feeling this isn't like what we call 'Ruby' on Earth. On Earth, Ruby is a shiny red stone, who's value is really only being a precious gem." she says softly.
"I don't think its proper name is Ruby, it's just what we call it." Nicola explains what she means, "It's red and it's valuable." The little red flecks in the alien girl's eyes are about the only thing she has in common with her 'cousin' Bryony. "The surface water is full of salt and monsters." The girl looks att he vending machine, "I don't know, what's good?"
Nanoha Takamachi smiles some and gently presses a button on a mango-sweetend drink. "This one is good for sunday mornings." she says softly, opening the bottle and offering a taste to the girl. If she doesn't like it, she'll take the bottle, and probably get something more safer she's sure Nicola would enjoy- like water for one. Everyone likes that.
It just isn't /intresting/ and she was just drinking that.
"It's a little sweet. Like the um. 'Shiny bread' I gave to you before." she says with a soft matter of fact nod.
"But it helps me on mornings like this. Where everything is a little loopy." she says softly.