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Why had she said no offense? Should have been a full offense, considering he had kidnapped her onto what was apparently quite literally the planet of Polaris.

... Wasn't Polaris a star-

Perhaps some of the revenge came in the form of Whisler immediately burning his mouth on the pizza, and even in spite of her still extant nerves, she giggled at his distress in a way that might have bothered her later. She watched the water disappeared, wondered if it even helped, debated suggesting he go get something else that might help more--

But why would she want to help him?

"Plan?" Nembus couldn't help the way she followed that with, "So not plan another kidnapping, right?" Another kidnapping? How could a kidnapping be planned with the kidnapped? She ran her hand through her hair. What a strange night. What a strange day. What a strange life.

Her other hand brought the hot dog back to her mouth.

Well.

The battle was one thing she could agree on.

"And, ah, yeah. Definitely didn't want to be there. Responded to the distress call and had regrets. Ah, was hiding behind the fountain." She swallowed. "Saw a White Moon friend. Went to go fight him so I wouldn't be pulled into the action. But then..."

She gestured.

"Generals, you know, they can call their subordinates."

Why was she telling him this? Maybe it was the out of her element. Maybe it was the discomfort. Maybe it was because she was running out of ways to say he was clearly going to actually hurt her.

It would probably be a lot more interesting to be in space if she wasn't afraid he was going to kill her, that wasn't wrong. She wasn't sure she was so afraid of that aspect anymore, admittedly, seemingly fairly convinced he didn't wish her any harm, probably, mostly, but she was still off-kilter, in a place where she knew nothing, in a place where her ability to teleport wouldn't serve her too well, in a place that the only person who could get her away was the one who had brought her there in the first place.

If Whisler had wanted it to, the former brothel would make a very effective prison.

"Yeah," replied Nembus, quietly, nodding a bit to the concept of coming back to his wonder but perhaps more focused on answering what his thoughts had led into, afterward. "Generals can call people. They can call people out, too. It can be tactically useful, I guess." More than a pawn on their chess board. It felt like a legitimate question, something that rang true with so much else she knew.

So much else she thought.

She had no choice in where she was, how she got there, where she was now, how to live, how to move forward, how to move back, how to even move herself around a battlefield she hadn't wanted to be a part of, and everything that even felt like a choice was not really a choice because the concept of a choice had been ripped from her the day Marcasite decided that corrupting her was the best use of her and her body, because it wasn't the best use of her as a whole, that her was gone, replaced with this husk.

The burning sensation in her nose came back, and she shivered.

She sighed.

"I don't know if I'll get in trouble. Maybe you. Probably you. Like I said, he's usually on fire." Nembus offered a lop-sided grin. "Bet he's already tried to call me back." Well, at least, she hoped he had. Had he? Had he at least cared that much or was she just a useless pawn on a chessboard that was purposefully given up for the enemy, or a pawn that at least had a tactical purpose before their starseed was inevitably fed to Metallia?

"I appreciate the food. Doesn't need to be healthy."

Nembus finished the hot dog and eyed the pizza, waiting for it to cool.

Nembus already dealt with enough burning from her general.

Well, not really. He tended to keep the fires to himself when it came to her. A more correct statement was that she already dealt with enough consequences of getting burnt by her general via people like Albite...

"Probably," she murmured, remembering the flashes of the shortest and longest minute of her life, going from mid-air, punching at Phaethon, to in the middle of chaos so literal that she felt like she had found herself back in The Rift, to obeying commands, to this apparently strangely nice knight despite the kidnapping deciding that he didn't want any of this and using her as an escape route-- "I mean, hopefully. Maybe they were too focused on that squire. Was the whole reason why everyone was called in. A corruption."

Maybe they considered her an acceptable loss to get an agent in exchange.

Nembus buried the thought down and shook her head and focused her attention on the food she was being presented with. Packing in a hot pie with ice cream didn't seem the wisest, though she supposed the towel he jammed in there was meant for separation. Hopefully, they would actually ... stay that way. She didn't want to really have melted ice cream all over a pie-- "Thank you. I'll try. No promises I'll remember. Memory has a lot of holes, after all."

Was that an attempt at an amnesia joke?

She didn't know.

"Unless he was deluding us too," Nembus replied, finally attempting to squirm herself off the bed, bag in one hand, wrapped up pizza in the other, "don't think it was a pretending to be force corrupted game."

When she stood up, her legs felt wobbly and bow-legged, and she could tell that she had an outright panic attack earlier. Knew from the signs. Knew from the way that her brain felt like white hot stress and energy that she couldn't get herself back under control. Everything felt like too much, not enough, too much everything at once, too much--

"To be honest, haven't interacted much with Ashanite before," she took Whisler's hand, still wary that he might transport them somewhere else, but hoping and trusting that it was anywhere but space, "came from Infiltration. I think he's an Info guy." Though she was info now, so maybe she should make an effort to know him better. Or maybe she shouldn't. Maybe she should just get as far away from her fellows as possible.

"But I'll keep your notes in mind."

Will probably need to update the database, too.

"Let's," she swallowed, "go home."