It was much darker in the Cove compared to the pod room that Nellie had mere minutes before awakened in. Hugging the wall with her body, she very carefully made her way down the flight of steps, taking her time about it with only one step at a time. Once she was done with that, she looked around for a bit then frowned to herself. There wasn't a living soul in this room at all. What did Lilac mean by her meeting her partner here?

<... I wouldn't be so quick as to assume that you're the only living soul here.>

She almost jumped out of her skin the moment she heard the voice that had seemingly come out of nowhere, her eyes wide as she swept her gaze across the room again to try to locate the source of the voice that had spoken to her. Still nothing. Could it be that the voice was coming from a transmitting device located somewhere in the room itself? But that didn't seem quite right either since she was sure that she didn't exactly hear the voice in the usual way if she remembered right.



A soft sigh.



She didn't exactly voice out her earlier thoughts as to what was going on either. Yet it was kind of creepy that the voice was actually able to read her thoughts and address them directly in her head. "Who are you? How is it that you're able to read my thoughts like this?" Tentatively she took a step forward and then another.



She found herself standing before the far wall that, on closer inspection now, was actually made up of tiny glowing stone tablets that were about the size of her hand. Curiosity piqued, she stretched out a hand to lightly run it over a few of them, immediately pulling it back as if she had been scalded at the strange feelings and whisperings that were evoked.

The masculine voice beckoned. Reaching out to the tablets again, she made sure to let her hand hover above them this time round while she followed the given instructions.

She blinked.

So this was it. Somewhere along the way she had actually woken up to find Lilac her cousin on an island and she was now about to partner with a talking stone tablet.

Taking a deep breath, she lightly brushed the tips of her fingers on the stone tablet that supposedly contained Niflheim, finally smiling to herself at the soft humming that she felt in response to her touch. This was way different compared to what she felt before from the other tablets. Finally, she took hold of the stone tablet within her palm then lifted it up, backing a few times in surprise when the object suddenly disappeared into thin air while a pair of red and black fighting gloves materialised on both her hands at the same instant.

"W-What..? Is this what you really are? A pair of gloves?"


There was an almost weary sounding sigh which was almost immediately followed by the replacing of the gloves with a simple leather bracelet on her left wrist. Staring wide-eyed at the bracelet, she looked at it this way and that before tentatively running her fingers over its surface, not at all sure as to what she should make of all this.




There was a slight pause when one would expect the other to respond to her posed question. Almost as if the other was contemplating something. Another pause to give her time to properly process everything that was said.

Nodding a few times, she felt herself beginning to relax a little at the other's words, her fingers tightening around the bracelet as she started to make her way back whence she came. There was a soft snort to acknowledge the exchange of words and then it was blissfully quiet as if the other had fallen asleep.