"You know you've never done this before." the little voice insisted on reminding her.  Charlie Cavallo merely rolled her eyes at the umpteenth time she had been chastised by the figment.  Empriko-tan, as it had begun to refer to itself as.  If they were going to keep having these conversations, she insisted on having a name.  Charlie didn't care much, either way, but it was really trying to be a bother.  She had just gotten a skateboard and was eager to try it out.

If she could learn some cool tricks, then she could really show off to the other girls around campus.  Charlie could already imagine the crowds who would gather just to see moving around St. Spica's grounds.  As cool as it was to have a horse, they would only let her ride Leone around so far.  Which, did sort of make sense.  It wasn't like she could hitch the Azteca up outside of the dining hall and then ride back to the dorms.  Besides, he needed his spot in the stables to rest up.

If she rode a skateboard...now THAT would be a sight to see!  Pulling off tricks in between classes.  Getting big air and grinding on hand rails!  Who wouldn't find that cool?  Charlie looked around the sidewalk she was standing on.  It wasn't that busy of a day, so she had plenty of room.  She smirked to herself and ran a hand through her hair.  No cowboy boots, today.  That was a sacrifice she would have to make.  The boots were just too much of a hazard, when she was already planting herself on a board with wheels.  The sneakers would have to suffice, although they had certainly seen better days.

"Alright...so, I think I got this." she spoke in English and mostly seemed to be psyching herself up.  The little figment just sighed and shook her head.  Currently, she was sitting on the curb, just out of the corner of Charlie's eye.  Not that it mattered much, since Charlie was the only one who could see it.  And hear it.

"Hell, if you're gonna make a big deal out of it, you can at least watch." Charlie chided her.

"If your not careful, I won't be the only one you're talking to." came the retort.  Charlie huffed and through the skateboard down.  She jumped on it and pushed off with her foot.  She'd show that voice in her head!  Charlie was going to learn how to skateboard and look cool doing it!

Hitomi tilted her head to the side, it seemed.. Okay. Not what she wanted. Why was it so hard to find something similar to what she wanted? She dropped the long sleeve back onto the rack and turned, she almost sighed, but that soft voice reminded her that a lady did not sigh. Buying clothes was never something she had done on her own, in person before. Mostly, she bought everything online, but she didn't have the time to wait on those types of things. The girl needed this new outfit soon. After all how could one go on a date an outing with Hikaru if she didn't have anything to wear? Oh, the hardships of the rich. Slender digits trailed over the fabric hanging from the racks that covered all the walls. There were many quality fabrics here.. Perhaps she could have something made especially for her? Money could always make it available sooner rather than later. Their date adventure could be put off a couple more days, she supposed. Giving a slight nod, Hitomi turned on her heel and made her way toward the counter.

A while later, she was stepping out of the shop, her purse a bit lighter. It wasn't as expensive as she had thought it would be, all thanks to her haggling skills. Of course that nagging voice had warned her over and over that a lady would not bicker but accept the price nobly and pay whatever they asked. Unfortunately for the voice, her budget was tighter than when she was at home so she improvised her noble outlook and used a bit of her feminine charms to lower the price to something far more acceptable. Hitomi glanced both ways down the street, unsure of what to do next. The most important thing was out of the way and all she had to do was wait two days to return and retrieve the outfit. She pursed her lips and then started toward the north end of the street. That's where the bookstore was located and the teen needed to pick up a few science fiction books she had looked up earlier in the week. They seemed alright through the previews, so she figured it wouldn't hurt.

Her gaze dropped from her path just before she stepped around the corner, focusing on the piece of paper she had slipped out of her peacoat's pocket. Unfolding it showed a copy of the tailors work, an open shouldered long sleeve shirt that would come most of the way down her thighs, paired with sherpa lined leggings. They would match her tall boots well. Down to the flowers that decorated the slender straps that would hold up the shirt. She smiled lightly as she stared down at it, then she caught a few segments of English, which had her glancing up. It gave her enough time to watch the girl drop the.. skateboard. Her smile instantly vanished as the memory of how her last experience around a skateboard resurfaced. Those were vile things of pain and death.

"Be careful on that thing." Without thinking, Hitomi had called out in the language the other girl was speaking moments before. It was a bit accented, but she could speak English well enough. Her father had many business associates in English speaking countries, so she had been forced to learn the language at a very young age. In the long run she figured it was for the best, many said it was one of the hardest languages to learn as you approached adulthood.

Charlie could feel an instant rush as she increased the speed.  Now this was what she was talking about!  Nothing like have a good bit of speed and maybe a little reckless endangerment, as far as she was concerned.  The tricky part, however, was maintaining her balance.  Something she shouldn't have too much of a hard time with, given some of the stunts she did with Leone.  However, this board was a far cry from her horse.  For one thing, she was pretty confident in her knowledge of how the animal would act.  This inanimate object was something new.

So, she would have to be careful, as she tried to get the hang of maneuvering it around the sidewalk.  Things were going rather well, actually.  Or at least as well as they could for a novice.  Now, all she needed to do was avoid any big distractions.  The voice in her head wasn't giving her any lip, so that was a big relief.  The only thing that snagged her attention was when an accented English voice pipped up.  That she had not anticipated.  Charlie looked up to see a girl outside of a store, who seemed to be addressing her.

"Huh?" she responded.  Actually, the girl was getting quite close.  Purple eyes going wide, she swerved to avoid a messy collision.  Only to find a bench right in her new path.  She jumped from her board in an effort to clear it one go.  Only to feel her foot catch the top and to go sprawlling across the pavement as her board bounced off the side of the building and rolled back towards Charlie.

"OK...that did look...as cool as I thought it would..." she conceded to no one in particular as the skateboard gently rolled against the top of her head and came to a stop. 

Golden hues went wide as she realized the girl wasn't moving the board with quite enough proficiency to keep them from colliding. A high pitched, very girly sound escaped from her chest and she flattened herself up against the building as quickly as she could. There she stood frozen, booted feet planted, arms spread and pressed hard against the brick to make herself the smallest target possible.

She couldn't help but watch the catastrophe unfold before her. It would have been much better to turn away. Hitomi winced as soon as the other girl hit the ground and closed one eye. That was definitely going to hurt. Rather slowly, as if waiting for another assailant to make themselves know, the Miator student took a few steps toward the prone girl, one arm outstretched.

"Gomen.. Are you okay?" She continued to use English since she wasn't sure if the skater could speak Japanese.

Slender digits wrapped around the side of the board and lifted it so it was no longer resting against the girl's head. It was settled off to the side as gently as she could manage while shaking. Because who wouldn't be shaking like that after a near collision? She didn't really want to respond to that announcement but at least she had a little bit of humor left. It was better than being unconscious like she figured the girl would have been.

"I'm sorry, I caused you to lose concentration. Let me help you up and as an apology I'll buy you dinner." Her hand was extended toward the American as she smiled ever so slightly.

Please, please don't let her be bleeding. It was a silent prayer that she quickly sent out while she stooped next to the girl.

Charlie was doing her best to get the world to stop spinning. It was being very uncooperative and somewhere, she swore she could hear that little figment shaking her head. Probably saying "I told you so." or some other remark. The American was less than thrilled with the outcome, but she knew there someone else present, so she had to put on a brave face. No sense in letting this little accident go and ruin her image as the rough and tumble stunt rider from the West!

She would just have to ignore the throbbing pain and soldier on. She felt the skateboard leave the space from her noggin, before the other girl stooped over and offered a hand to help her up. Charlie saw it and tried to get it to stay in one place. But, that stupid world had to go and spin. She blinked her eyes a few times and then snickered a bit. Was she speaking English? It was pretty good, actually.

"Nah, nah...s'all good." she replied, she waved off the concern, "That bench sure came outta nowhere."

Finally, she found the hand and got herself back up to her feet. Everything was still moving, but not at quite the irritating pace she had been having trouble with before. As she steadied herself on her feet, she put a hand to her head and did her best not to wince as she did so. Charlie was sure of one thing...this was all going to feel much worse, tomorrow. Now that she was better able to get a look at the other girl who had so generously offered up a free dinner, Charlie cracked a half grin and gave a thumbs up.

<"See? All good!"> Happy though she was to proclaim herself as 100% (in spite of falling well short of that), she did not notice the trickle of blood that was making it's way down from beneath her hand, where she was holding her head. Charlie also did not notice that, while she was trying to show off her Japanese, she was actually speaking in Spanish.

A quick blink and she looked up at the bench. It looked pretty stationary to her. Bolts connected the legs to the concrete sidewalk and held it fast, even after the run in with this deathwisher. Apparently she wasn't as great at catching English idioms quite yet. "Ah.. I am pretty sure the bench doesn't move." Then her hand was clasped and her attention was drawn back to the purple eyed skater. She gracefully moved herself to her feet, automatically straightening her skirt out of habit, then drew the other girl up as well. Her free hand rose and rested against the girl's forearm to keep her steady for the moment. The girl seemed awfully unstable as she held her head. "Maybe you should sit down, actually."



After the thumbs up though, she seemed to be doing well enough standing, but she couldn't quite catch what was said. They had been speaking perfect English to one another. Okay, so maybe sitting down was the best plan. Obviously, she wasn't perfectly fine like she claimed. Hitomi side stepped so that she was beside the girl and started to lead her to the bench. It was then the crimson liquid invaded her eyesight and almost instantly the color began to drain from Hitomi's cheeks. She motioned toward her own head as she stared at the slow trickle. Oh no, here it came. Why did things like this always happen? Why was she so bothered by blood? It wasn't like Hitomi had been in a terrible accident when she was younger. Even as a child all it took was someone scraping their knee and she was out cold. But to see it roll down the side of the girl's face, that was far too much.



"You.. uh.." A slight sway and then Hitomi reached out for the bench. It was far too late for that now though. Even though she had a firm grip on the stabilizer, black was circling her vision and closing in fast. Sit down, sit down! Her brain was moving a little slower at that point, so the order was given too late. Her knees quickly gave out and she tumbled toward the ground as her eyes rolled back.

The still woozy Charlie thought that she was making perfect sense.  And, of course, she was making sense.  If only she had been speaking to someone who understood Spanish.  Still, that seemed to be the least of her worries.  The other girl took one look at Charlie and became rather pale.  Then, she appeared to lose focus and attempted to steady herself on the same bench that she was looking to guide the American towards.  This was all very unusual.

While she had to admit that the context of her joke did not appear to land quite so solidly, she didn't think it was that bad as to make people look like they were about to faint.

"It's hemophobia." a voice pipped in.  The tiny figure of Empiriko-tan sat calmly on the top of the bench.  "An irrational fear of blood.  Your head wound does not appear to be agreeing with the poor girl.  You might want to catch her, by the way."

There was no time to debate with the pesky voice (even if she happened to be right) as the girl started to fall backwards.  Charlie practically dove forward and landed on her knees as she caught the stranger kept her from making the same unfortunate bounce off the paved sidewalk that she had just did.  She seemed to be out cold and that gave the purple haired girl a good moment to let out a long sigh.

"Man, this day just keeps...doin' things." she thought she had something more to say, but without much of an audience, Charlie just didn't care to complete that thought.  With the dark haired girl still in her arms, she waited for another moment before gathering up her strength and picking her up.  She was taller than Charlie and that would pose a problem.  Luckily, she just needed to get her over to the bench.  After laying her across it, Charlie took a seat on the ground by her feet and wiped her face.  Her palm was already red with blood, even though it wasn't too big of a cut.

"Perfect." she said, with a roll of her eyes, "Now I gotta deal with this, too."

Charlie fished out a bandana from her back pocket and tied it tightly around her head.  She winced as she felt the pressure on the cut on her forehead, but was reasonably sure that it wouldn't cause much problems.  Except for the fact that she would have to really put this bandana through a few washes.  She glanced over to the unconscious girl on the bench.

"Well, darlin', looks like you an' me are gonna be hangin' out for a bit longer.  Hope ya didn't have to be anywhere soon."

It was always odd waking after a sort of forced sleep, leaving the teen groggy and a bit ill tempered. A hand slowly rose to her face though she had yet to open her eyes. It pressed against her forehead, but weirdly enough the headaches that usually followed such a stunt was absent. Hitomi slowly opened her eyes, peeking through the slits between her fingers. It was still light outside at least.. and she wasn't on the ground. Another favorable outcome compared to her norm. Then it all rushed back as to why she had blacked out in the first place.

The hand that had covered her face reached up to grab the back of the bench and pull herself up. Ah, there was a twinge of the headache she had been lacking. Obviously she didn't hit her head, that would be far more painful. That meant this girl had caught her, even in her bleeding state. She was nothing but a bother. Hitomi dropped her chin a bit and glanced up at her protector of sorts."Uhm.. Thank you." It was all quite embarrassing for the golden eyed girl. Her legs swung off the bench so she was sitting regularly and she motioned for her savior to take a seat beside her if she so pleased. With that done, her hands clasped the edge of the seat and she leaned forward. "Sorry about that.. I'm not much help in those sort of situations."

As if apologizing and admitting some of her weakness made her uncomfortable, Hitomi slid her hands into her pockets. Then she instantly started panicking inside. While her face expression remained locked behind her mask, her heart was racing and her groggy mind was wide awake once more.

Somewhere in the midst of their crazy introduction she had lost the paper that she needed to retrieve her outfit from the tailor. A quick patdown was given to all her pockets, but came up empty. Not good, not good, not good. Trying to not draw attention to her sudden panic she looked around their immediate area. She wasn't sure how long she had been out or if the wind had picked up at that time either. Anything could have happened to it. If she hadn't been in thinking-panic mode, she might have just started crying there on the spot. Maybe if she went back to the shop they would give her a new one.. That thought was dismissed though. They had been closing up shop when she left. Great.

"You.. wouldn't have happened to see a paper, about this big," Hitomi used her hands to show the approximate size, "fly anywhere by chance?"

The amount of time that had passed was not something Charlie was all together focused on.  The primary concern was in keeping awake.  As her little figment was insisting on reminding her, it was in her best interest to remain conscious after taking such a drastic bump to the old noggin.  She was recovering, however, and aside from the nasty headache, things were returning to somewhere approaching normal.  Or at least what she found to be passable for "normal".

Eventually, enough time had passed as to allow the other girl to finally regain her own consciousness.  She had stirred a bit, on that bench that Charlie had provided, and began the process of regaining her senses.  It was a confused "Thank you" that first caught Charlie's ear.  Understandable, since a lot had happened since she had passed out.  Although, not quite enough in Charlie's opinion.  There was a lot of sitting around and doing nothing.

Her fellow teenager got herself into a seated position, offering the American a seat beside her.  Since it had to be better than concrete, Charlie accepted the offer and climbed up to sit beside the girl.  She wasn't bleeding anymore...at least not in such a way that would cause another episode.  Her bandana was doing the heavy lifting on that front.  Charlie offered up a grin and a thumbs up.  Might as well attempt to show that nothing was wrong.

"Ah, nothing to worry about." she said, "Wasn't the first time I took a spill, won't be the last!"

She truly didn't want to cause any unnecessary concern on her account.  Besides, didn't this girl have enough to worry about, without having to concern herself with the safety of a girl like Charlie?  She seemed to have enough trouble trying to keep up her own appearances.  Suddenly, she had started to pat herself down and started to search for something.  Charlie had enough time to wonder just what was going on, before she made a more direct inquiry.

"A piece of paper? ..." she repeated, trailing off.  Her tone implied the rhetorical nature of the question, as she leaned forward.  "Hmmm...."

Charlie closed her eyes.  Not to rest, but to try and visualize what had just happened.  She pictured a little office.  A single room with a desk and her figment sitting on the other side.  The tiny figure puffed away at a pipe as they stared at each other.

"Yes, a piece of paper.  A receipt of some variety.  After all, she had just exited a shop.  But not an ordinary one.  She wasn't carrying any bags, after all." the tiny little figure said, "She ordered something and it most be of some sort of value.  And not just monetary.  This is of a more personal matter."

Exactly what this new acquaintance was in search of was not the important matter.  She needed a starting point and that was where Empirko-tan came in. Behind her, a screen popped up and the little figment produced a pointer.  She tapped at the screen where the stranger first appeared in her field of vision.  The scene played out as it had before.  With Charlie on a collision course, only to swerve out of the way.  The rest of what happened was painfully obvious.  Back in reality, Charlie's eyebrow twitched.

"Do keep focused.  If you want my help, we have to look at what is available to us." the figment insisted.  And so the scene replayed.  The girl pressed herself against the wall.  That had to be it.  She had moved the skateboard before helping Charlie back up to her feet.  So, sometime between that first reaction and when she came into contact with Charlie had to be when she lost that paper.  The purpled haired girl was quick to get to her feet.

"Ooooooooh...Kay."  She said, opening her eyes and turning towards where the other girl had been standing, "Let's see...you were over here..."

She walked over and mimicked the pose she had been holding.  Then she pressed herself against the wall.  "And theeeeeennnnn..."

She repeated the movement a couple of times, before looking down at her hand.  "Just gimme a second here..."

Hitomi watched the process with a bit of curious fascination, but that was only for an instant. Obviously this girl had to have some sort of photographic memory if she closed her eyes instead of looking around. She had heard of a few people having this ability. In fact, she was pretty sure Sherlock Holmes had been one of them. Now was not the time to be pondering things of that nature though! She had to find that paper.

Just as she had come to the conclusion that she would look for it until nightfall if need be, her purple haired girl was on her feet and posing exactly how she had. It was a little creepy just how spot on she was. The posture and everything where in the correct layout. She was almost fascinated enough with this girl that she focused on her theatrics, but instead gave her head a shake. This made the subtle headache strengthen for a fraction of a moment then the spike of pain faded away and she moved to her feet as well. Depending on which way the wind had blown through the street would determine where she needed to look. A quick glance at her hair, which was being lifted by the same wind she had been wondering about indicated she should look to the east. The problem was, Hitomi had issue with just running off and leaving the girl here. She was injured for one. Two, she was focused on helping her. A few more moments to let the girl get her ideas in order wouldn't hurt anyone. As long as they found it.

Hitomi lifted a hand to her chest as she watched Charlie, curling her digits inward over her heart as she gently bit into her lower lip. Hopefully this would work. She didn't want to prolong the time between now and their outing. She had looked forward to it so much already. Planned so much. It couldn't just go down the drain with one careless move, right?

This was going to be a little tricky, but Charlie had every reason to believe in herself.  For one thing...she was Charlie.  While she might not have appeared to notice the other girl's presence in front of her, she took note of it all the same.  The pensive expression and the way she held her hand up near her chest.  If it hadn't been apparent before, it certainly was now.  That little slip of paper meant something more than monetary value that had gone into the sale.

Charlie moved over towards the scene of her crash.  The receipt wasn't on the ground in the immediate vicinity, so the way wind must have carried it along.  She scanned the ground and watched as a few leaves shuffled about the sidewalk.  There was a small pile collected by a small set of stairs leading up to another shop.  Charlie made a bee-line over and started to rummage through.  Finally, she found what she had been looking for.

Plucked from it's resting(/hiding) place, Charlie looked it over.  The name of the shop matched that of the one they had been standing in front of.  And the items in question were for an outfit of some variety.  Set to be tailored and picked up at a later date.  All thoughts of her banged up head had been replaced with the feelings of pride.  With a confident strut, she walked back over and presented the receipt to the dark haired girl.

"And here it is!" she said, "Not bad for a gal who just ate pavement, right?"

This was a much better boost to the old ego.  Not that Empiriko-tan would say that Charlie needed it.  Still, after such an unfortunate "dismount" from the skateboard, the purple haired girl would be more inclined to accept the success as confirmation of some sort of coolness.  Even if she had been the cause of the situation, she had resolved it!  And that had to count for some sort of points in the old "Cool" column, now didn't it?