Nariko would swear for the rest of her life that she thought she saw something glow red out of the corner of her eyes. Most likely, though, she would never find out, as her gaze was fixed on the sky anyway. She couldn't tell exactly how it happened during the moment and when the sudden sight finally registered enough to have her glance sideways, all Nariko could make out were the smudgy water-colored versions of the more or less natural red tones in Alice's eyes. Then came the voice that followed. "What?" Nariko asked somewhat dreamily as she rubbed her eyes. 'Am I hallucinating this far into the day?' she thought worriedly. The thought didn't hang around long since Nariko saw Nathan return some short time later. "Okay," she replied, watching him pick Ren up. Realistically, there wasn't another answer she could have said.

Nathan nodded lightly and carefully sat Ren up in the back seat of the car, then pulled the seat-belt over her securely and buckled it. Once that was done, he closed the door and got himself situated in the driver's seat. Alice followed Nathan to the car and opened up the door behind the driver seat, since the one behind the passenger seat was filled- then got herself situated in the passenger seat.

[[ I admire your new outfit~! <3 ]]

Nariko followed Alice rather courteously, in the manner she found herself most accustomed to when in the presence of some authority, and nimbly placed her doll-like stature into the open seat in the back of the car, quickly fastening the seat-belt and closing the door with just enough force to make sure it wouldn't swing open randomly. It occurred to her that she had gotten into the car without thought of where Nathan might have been escaping to. She wondered, then, if there was any place to escape to at all considering that Ren and herself had arguably already been followed.

[[ thanks~ though, it's not really new ^^' just haven't worn it in......forever XD i'm broke so no new outfits ;~; ]]

When everyone was situated, Nathan turned on the car and drove off. A little while after Nathan got on the road, Ren slowly came to. Her fingers twitched ever so slightly, then her light lavender eyes fluttered open. "Hn...?" She wasn't very loud so Nathan and Alice didn't hear her over the radio.

[[ Oh! Nova! Check your trades. n.n I sent you a gift (for Christmas and your birthday, so two gifts >w<). You could use the items to your liking- designing, trading, merchant-work, ect. ]]

Time went on and the music erased every bit of it, promising that each second was neatly compiled into one gift labeled "then" where Nariko would only remember the smudge of colors and sounds of that day as far-off hiding places of the past. She, who had been absently staring out the window, blinking more frequently than normal as a response to her still-somewhat uncoordinated vision, then thought she heard a shift next to her; a movement in the dull reflection of the glass that was not another outdoor scene on the other side of the car. She turned her head, slightly- as if for some moment she were suspended and in a dream that wasn't worth being a toy of- before she looked all the way. A smile cursed her lips as she shifted to better face the waking beauty in front of her. "Good morning," she echoed in a similar, soft tone.

[[ checked 'em, love 'em~ <3 -huggles- thank you soooooo much!! ^0^ ]]

Ren rubbed her eyes to try and clear her blurry vision. Hearing a familiar voice of the one she loved, she turned her head to get a better look at her and smiled ever so sweetly. "Morning Nai." She said in a voice that was as soft as silk.

[[ i spaaaazed >< ]]

Nariko closed her eyes, listening to the sound of Ren's voice. It called a cool gust of air into her own lungs and then drew out a small sigh of relief afterwards. For a moment, just for one second, she forgot about the troubles that had been brooding up a storm in her mind as the car drove on. When she returned light to her world, the soft color of Ren's eyes were the steady, early morning of a rainy day where the sky was still fading between the sun and stars with streams of cirrus clouds drifting into the same lilac haze. Then, the fuzzy outlines painted new thoughts into Nariko's temporarily artistic mind, leaving a diamond of a memory behind. "How do you feel?" she asked, refusing to attempt to return the same melodic present as Ren had done for her.

"Like I hit by a freight train..." Ren answered in a semi-jagged voice as she rubbed the back of her head. "What happened...? The last thing I remember was kicking the butts of a bunch of training puppets..." She glanced over at Nariko a second time, her violet eyes showing just how confused the poor girl really was. "I didn't get knock out by a doll did I?" She asked in a dreary voice.

Nariko opened her mouth to say something in between part of Ren's confusion, but closed it and shook her head instead. "No, you didn't," she reassured her kindly, though her silence afterwards screamed 'Read between the lines.' Up until that point, Nariko knew what had happened but only on a chronological timeline; that she had done something more or less irrational that nearly got both Ren and herself seriously injured, if not the latter killed. It was then that she remembered just how it felt to be attacked from behind with a rod of lightning. That electric memory echoed, evoking a small shudder as she turned to face forwards in her seat.

Ren watched Nariko with concern. She was confused and lost but she knew something went down in the training ground- something bad. She blinked when Nariko shuddered then went to face forward in her seat. Ren adjusted in her seat so that she was looking directly out the window and slowly rose a delicate finger to absentmindedly trace a crack engraved into her amulet. Her eyebrow furrowed together in thought at the feeling of the jagged edges.

Alice watched the demi-demon, her own secrets making her sink into her seat and simply stay quiet.

[[ I completely forgot that I was playing a human character here. Stress doesn't fly too well with mortals. ]]

Before Nariko realized it, she had begun to hallucinate; possibly from the side effects of the Doll's Eyes or simply from an instability in the air around her that violently shook her life all of a sudden. She felt herself pulled in by a light-draining, physics-defying black hole to an impression that she was confused; that the fears strangling her mind were not the evidence of conspired deaths, that no one's jewelry glowed, that people didn't own electrocution weapons and that they didn't open portals and summon mythical creatures- that one day, hopefully long after her own, Ren would find a comforting, more eternal sleep, and that Nariko had heard her wrong, or maybe she had never even heard that soft, charming, melodic voice of a porcelain doll back in the girl's bathroom from the very start...

Hell. By that time Nariko thought she was in her own car. She continued to ruminate as her fingers curled over the edge of her seat, leaning forwards just a little and resting her weight in her locked elbows. Gravity eventually pulled a few strands of chocolate silk over Nariko's shoulder as the imperfect ride resettled the movement of her hair, shrouding her view in a dark veil. Her breaths shortened at a quicker pace. Perhaps her parents were driving because they were taking her away from her uncle's house-- Nariko's eyes widened momentarily-- and they were simply going to bring her all the way home, trying to apologize for their inconsiderate, ignorance of their daughter, all while interrupting each other desperately trying to get the story straight as a unified couple. They continued to talk while Nariko daydreamed some sort of nightmare where everything was backwards, with emotions and life-threatening problems that she wasn't ready to handle yet; situations in which her parents were going to be there once she was finally able to accept the challenges, where they would hold her hands when she needed consoling and then let her free to soar the skies with a small kite string holding her back from the true dangers until she was able to steer away from them herself or fight them away on her own.. But what were these fictional horrors doing in her nightmares? Nariko swallowed, her mouth too wet and her throat too dry. She had mindlessly pressed her weight into the side of the door and accidentally onto the button that rolled the window down. Slowly but surely, the wind blew away her hair and the ashy haze away, rushing a cool burst of reality back into her life. Her dizziness tipped her backwards a bit.

Then she proceeded to turn out the window and puke.

After that she reigned her knees into her chest and broke down into her folded arms, starting with the first choke and muffled sniffle as the wind continued to wash into the car and entangle itself in her hair, bleeding tears incessantly on from there.