Hiatus Ended [Moonie]

After leavig the Vagabond Inn, Nebula would ponder whether she was wrong to stay at home for days on end. In just a single day of going outside, Nebula had met and talked to two people who were nice enough, which prompted her to reconsider her decisions about the outside world, if only for a second. Nevertheless, her behavior remained unchanged.

Nebula quietly strolled down the street, doing her best not to stand out, holding her sketchbok to her chest. For now, she would simply mind her own business, walking aimlessly down the long roads that covered Sunlake Palms in the vain hopes that walking would help her come up with the faintest idea of what to do next.

Out of the blue, Nebula suffered a chilling sensation run from her tailbone o her neck; a sensation she often felt when she overheard, suspected or otherwise felt someone to be thinking ill of her. Nebula nervously turned around and failed to see anything particularly attention-catching. That is, until she saw the incredibly suspicious trench-coated and fedora'd figurem who just so happened to be standing three people away from her; a stalker tactic which Nebula had heard about while in prison.

Fearing for her own safety, Nebula would hurry on along, walking at an accelerated pase but not quite running or sprinting. She just knew that going out had been a terrible idea all along! What made her think this time was going to be any different! Though she may have met two people who happened to not know her, this stalker, she though, was confirmation that the general public still knew who she was and was after her! They wanted to kill her!

In her blind panic, Nebula failed to notice the lamp post directly in front of her. With a hearty thud, Nebula fell to the ground and dropped her sketchbook. Her shoulder, which had collided head-on with the lamp post, was currently being held in her hand as she tried her hardest to hold back tears of pain. Being as fragile as a glass of water, Nebula's pain prevented her from thinking about how laying on the floor would allow her stalker to catch up to her.

Wiping her eyes to prevent the formed tears from falling, Nebula grabbed her sketchbook and stood up before turning around to face the floor-bound stalker in front (well, more like below, to be completely honest) of her. "W-what do you want from me? Whatever it is you think I did, I didn't do it! I swear!" Well, that could've turned out to be a lie, had her paranoid theory about why this woman was currently stalking her proved itself to be true, but Nebula wasn't exactly in a rational state of mind. She was just saying words because words could (sometimes) defend oneself, and right now, Nebula was feeling absolutely attacked.

Nebula held her sketchbook tighter against her chest than ever before. What was this stalker going to do to her? Would the crowd intervene? Who's to even say the crowd wasn't in on the whole thing, and this was some twisted form of public justice? Nebula looked around at the crowd. Some people were staring, but in Nebula's state of mind "some" looked like "all of them", and of course it hadn't occurred to Nebula that they were staring because of the stalker. No, she was dead sure they were all staring at her. Hating her. Preying upon her.

"...Mustard? Rice? Wha..." Nebula had absolutely no idea what this woman was going on about. Had she just admitted to being a weirdo? And calm and composure? Nebula was beyond confused, she was... lost, both figuratively and literally. "I... I'm sorry, but what are you talking about?" her nervousness was still very much present, but she also desperately wanted to understand what her stalker was trying to say. Was it code? Was she trying to tell her something she couldn't afford other people to hear? Or was she just... mentally special? "Please, stop following me. You're... scaring me." The lack of people actually attacking her and the few people that had stopped looking at the two women had alleviated her paranoia to the point where she had the courage to ask to be left alone politely. If this woman just wanted to talk, stalking people was not exactly the best way to go about it.

It was then that Nebula noticed the bruises and scrapes on the woman's face and hands. Her grip on her prized sketchbook loosened as she held one hand over her mouth to cover the gasp that escaped it. And... was she asking for her well-being? It appears this was a misunderstanding after all... but, how could she do that if she was the only person injured here? "I-I'm fine. Are you okay?" Nebula would pull out a disposable (but clean, mind you) handkerchief from her jacket pocket and signalled the stranger to extend her hand. If she complied, Nebula would wrap the handkerchief around her hand in an impromptu bandage. "... I-I don't have anything to help out with your other hand. I'm sorry..." The last two words would be spoken in the human equivalent of a dog's whimper. If she refused, Nebula would simply put the handkerchief back in her pocket with a dissapointed expression.

"N-no... I don't like mustard..." Nebula didn't much care for dressings or sauces or other similar additional toppings on her food; she liked it plain and simple, with the original taste intact. But more importantly, why was this woman asking her about such tribial thing? It wan't like Nebula was the world's leading expert in social interactions, but even she knew that's no way to start a conversation, let alone do so as a follow up to chasing after someone!

So in the end... she was being stalked after all? But... this woman had just asked about her well-being, and she had just started to seem so nice! So... Once again, Nebula was fundamentally dumbfounded, and was at the cruel mercy of her stalker. "W-What do you want from me? Why are you stalking me?" If before it hadn't been apparent that Nebula was extremely scared, only a blind person wouldn't be able to see it now; her fists were holding her chin up as she tried to bury her face in them, and the only joints left to hold her sketchbook in place were her elbows and the backsides of her upper arms "P-please don't hurt meeee!"

So she wasn't being stalked after all? Nebula had already gone through two stages of confused, and she seriously could've done without another. I mean, who stalks someone over whether or not they eat rice with mustard, tries to socialize with them, admits they were stalking them, and then tries to take it back? The absolute weirdo would have to try a little harder than that next time, as not everybody would have enough cowardice to simply decide to overlook all previous offenses out of fear of invoking another, much like Nebula had and did.


"...You seriously scared me. H-How was I supposed to know you didn't want to hurt me?" She had been practically chased down, for Christ's sake! "I-if you just wanted to talk to me, you could've just walked up and said hi..." Nebula commented as she regained a grip on her sketchbook and looked away. Complaining felt... weird. Like as if she was doing something she wasn't supposed or had the right to do, yet at the same time she was doing something that felt right.

"O-Oh..." Nebula should've figured she wasn't really interested in making friends with her. Whatever, she expected this, so no harm had been done, and Nebula could move on with her life with (entirely relative) ease. "I see. It's okay, I understand." She would admit with complete solemnity, she wouldn't really want to talk to herself either, were she somebody else.

Nebula was about to leave, having had both her doubts and fears answered, when she remembered that the person in front of her was still harmed. She rummaged around through her pockets, but was unable to find anything with which to patch up the woman's other hand once again. "Y-your hand... it looks pretty bad, do you want me to get you something to help with it? I wouldn't mind running over to the pharmacy." She truly wouldn't have minded running a few blocks if it meant helping somebody in need, especially considering the woman had bruised her hand because Nebula ran away from her. She still founsd it slightly creepy that she had been stalking her, but at the very least she didn't appear to have any malicious ulterior motives, so she didn't mind anymore. "It's my fault your hand is bruised. A-At least let me know how I can make it up to you." She would look the woman in the eyes, hoping to gouge out any way of helping her out of her.

Nebula realized that in her unfocused desire to help the woman befor her, she never even learned the woman in question's name. "Umm... i-if you don't mind me asking... could you tell me your name?"