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Tuesday was the Most Special Day of the week in Derpraline's mind. It was on Tuesdays that she tried to avoid human contact outside of her Special Place as much as possible, and veered as far away from any youma signature that might have crossed her otherworldly sense. Yes, it was probably shirking her duty, but for waffles she was willing to make gross exceptions. Besides, it wasn't as if Astraea were around to scold her, no no. There was no one to scold Derp but Derp and she sorta liked it that way. Even if it was sorta lonely. Even if she did sorta miss Taranis, and Astraea, and Durh, and the warm beds and the warm food and a place to keep her crayons that wasn't in her hat.

Alright, so lately Derpraline's life was nothing but utter youmagoop. Yet there were still waffles on Tuesday, because the proprietor had a soft spot for the lonely little girl who concealed her tail as a sort of fuzzy belt around the muslin of her fancy getup. Really he got a real kick out of the hat and her tendency towards syrupy kisses that reminded the hefty old man of grandkids living across the country in Chicago.

So it was that Derpraline the girl was wandering towards the front door of The Waffle Stop, cowbell clanging with a sort of odd melancholia before she stopped and looked closely at the young man with a rather fuzzy face sitting not far from the door. "You have a fuzzy face, mister. I have a fuzzy face too. Isn't it nice to have all that fuzzy to keep you warm?" Bless the poor dear's heart, there was no way she could recognize this odd individual as her beloved Taranis. Yet.

Blue eyes looked right back into his own, the voice hitting the feline ears concealed in the giant fluff that passed for hair but was more or less a living mass of curls that moved almost on their own. They knotted, they tangled, they hadn't been brushed in a very long time. It was only a hint of how the kitten herself looked, fur matted and tangled in a way so that they couldn't be bitten out...at least not alone. Frankly, Derpraline was a mess. Bare, cold feet were stained with mud and rough around the edges like she'd been doing more running than walking on them these days, scarred from battles that nobody but someone like Parker would understand. He was, after all, the one who had picked her up and cleaned her wounds the last time she was hurt!

"You sound....fuh-mil-yer." It was a drawn out word, drawled and long in a way that the missing Sailor Duhr might have said it. "Looks sorta like my Taranis, but he was not fuzzy. He was very not-fuzzy." Now tears did well up, two great big things that welled but didn't drip from the girl's face. A normal girl would have then been embarrassed about this, but Derpraline was neither girl nor normal, not even remotely either of the two. "I miss my Taranis." The scent of waffles were close, but the girl simply plopped down onto the bench next to the boy, indulging in some dejected feelings. It wasn't like there was anyone she had to impress here. Not anyone that she had to worry about finding out that she was just a little bit crazy, and more than a little slow.

Two tears dripped, hitting the wet ground and making no mark. "Lots and lots."

It was probably a very good thing that Derpraline was not at all anything like a mind reader. The little girl would have been affronted and aghast at the idea that she wouldn't be crying over him! It was Taranis who let her force her way into living with him and his adorable little normal kitten, it was Taranis who didn't draw away from the mentally afflicted Derpraline, and introduced her to his girlfriend so that she could see the pretty pretty romance. This was not something she was going to mention anytime soon, however, because even a dumb kitten could read. Especially with pictures. There had been that awful picture of Taranis and then he had vanished, and the window wasn't open for Derpraline anymore at his home.

So she'd been sleeping around Crystal, around Destiny City, where she could find the time and the quiet. It had been a very long summer for the guardian cat, and some of that veneer of stupidity had been forcibly stripped from her. But that was neither here nor there, and certainly was not the forefront of Derp's mind at all as the revelation of who she was sitting next to and babbling about were the same person. Her Taranis! "TARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANIS!" Indescribable joy was written across the girl's face as her hat went flying from the force of the collision of bodies, arms tight around the bearded youth's waist. Tears were falling without check now, without care as she bawled openly with the abandon only children could manage.

"Derp doesn't forget waffles! Derp doesn't forget Taranis!" Arms squeezed as hard as they could, words broken and muffled through fabric and thick tears. "Worry worry lots of worry, but Taranis is here and Taranis is ok, and Taranis is fuzzy!!" The fuzzy was the most interesting part, really.

Oh dear, he'd said the D-word. Duhr. The sobs only increased, a plaintive wail echoing across the buildings, several patrons inside the restaurant looking out and wondering if maybe someone was being attacked. Seeing that it was just a girl crying and hugging someone was no cause for alarm in Destiny City, and the satisfied patrons went back to ignoring their surroundings like good sheep. Derpraline didn't continue at this for long though, burying her soaked face back against Parker's chest with a sniffle and a hiccup.

"Duhr is go-go-gooone. Dunno where she went! Just gone! They took Derp's things and Duhr's things and the room is gone and...and...itsbeenawfulandandand..." Words slurred and ran together as the miserable little girl clung tightly to her previously missing friend with quite a bit of strength. "Derp had to feed Derp and find Derp places to sleep. Good thing it was summer huh? Woulda got real cold otherhow." The door swung open as a pair left the establishment, letting the warm scent of syrup and waffles out into the night, a tear-stained face rising up as it wafted past her nose.

"Waffles." Apparently, even the trauma of being abandoned took second place to waffles.

The sniffles stopped rather abruptly and the same look came across Derpraline's face as it had when she had scented the waffles. For all that she was an odd ball of fluff, and a bit of a slow one at that, Derp was not at all truly stupid. The little girl knew exactly what Parker was offering, and was more than willing to show him her answer. When he threw in the offer of waffles, her answer became an exuberant cry that was a total mirror of her earlier expressions. Tiny arms that had been hugging hard, tried to squeeze even harder until her bones ached, dirty bare feet beating against the cool cement with delight.

"Yes yes yes yes! Waffles and Derp and Parrrrrker!" It sounded very much like 'Parhkuuuuuur' when she said it, releasing a hand to mop her wet face on the hem of her skirt almost delicately. "Derp can bring her crayons and draw you a picture too! It will be a Derp and Parker picture and then Aristotle can draw one!" Apparently, she didn't quite understand that not all cats were such as she was. Well, she would learn quickly enough!

Slipping her little hand down into the young man's, her smile was almost as brilliant as the sun, ruined only by the watery, red-rimmed eyes that came from extensive sobbing in the young. "I am very happy you are back."