Welcome to Gaia! ::

Well, at least she had been close. And at least the kid (who couldn't be more than 10 years old) wasn't freaking out at her fur. And tail.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Nita babbled, a bit flustered. A child on the island? "I was just going to return some stuff I borrowed from him..." She took a few breaths to calm herself. "I'm Nita."

"Nice to meet you, Cody," Nita said, smiling back. "Ah, I'm turning into a red panda. They look kind of like a cross between a raccoon and a fox." She set the bucket of cleaning supplies on the porch; she figured she could just leave them in front of Newt's actual duplex with a note or something.

Nita couldn't help but grin. This kid was pretty cool, and seemed pretty hard to phase, which was a good thing under the circumstances. Still, she wondered why on earth Moreau would take such a risk as to take on a young subject like Cody. She held out her arms as if inspecting the color for the first time. Truth be told, she hadn't really examined herself since her second change, other than that there was obviously more fur and a couple feet of tail protruding from her rear.

"It is kind of neat, actually," she agreed. And as much as she hated to admit it, she really was 'lucky' compared to some of the islanders. "So, um.. I guess you do know what's going on here..?"

"I just changed again the other day," Nita started to explain. "It takes some getting used to." She noted the change in Cody's expression, her sensitive ears catching the tiny sniffle. "Hey, hey there, are you okay?" she asked softly.

"Oh Cody," Nita said, her heart practically breaking at the sight of his tears. She had worked hard on ignoring that particular aspect of the island, but to know that this little boy would never be with his family again...

She wrapped her arms around him, letting him cry all over her t-shirt. "I know, I know," she whispered, holding back her own tears.

"I know, I know it is," Nita said softly. She maneuvered the pair of them into Cody's duplex so they would have at least a modicum of privacy, cameras aside. She noticed the mess, but it wasn't a big deal just then. Cody was just a little kid. She sat on one of the more comfortable chairs and pulled Cody into her lap. He wasn't that much smaller than she was, but Nita supposed she was the adult.

Nita stroked his hair out of his face, catching his mumbled response. "Cured of what?" she asked quietly. So maybe the labs really did have a good medical reason to be conducting this research.

MS. Multiple sclerosis. Nita didn't know much about the disease except that it was a bad one, and that people with it usually died young.

"Is that why they brought you here?" she asked, still holding onto Cody. She fervently hoped they would be able to cure him, even if it did entail being turned into a... something.