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[beariot]

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[beariot]

... Huh.

[ When had she, herself... started thinking like that? ]

I suppose that is a way of looking at it. I don't think I even realized to put it in those terms...

[loadme]

It's not really all that surprising. You and I have been here for a long time, this place is probably like a second home.

[Monika pauses, eyes looking the report she'd been working on.]

Though I guess in my case, this is just.. home. Period.

Oh, not that I really mind! I don't have anything waiting for me anywhere else.

[beariot]

I guess... for you, it is an easier topic. This is your home, for you. [ Chariot sighed, her gaze turning towards her hands... ]

But for me... I wonder, when did I start thinking like this? Treating this world as where I belong, now...

[ She had a place that she could return to. She had a life there. A career. A person who would wait for her. She had an obligation to Akko and Diana to find their way back to that same place. And yet... she didn't think of it as hers. Not the same way she did this foreign world.

When... had that happened? ]

[loadme]

[The topic had been so easy to discuss for her, she'd failed to consider what it must've felt like on the other end.

Monika had everything she could ever want, here.

A life. One she'd built for herself through her own choices and efforts.]

I...

[But Chariot... her circumstances were different. She'd had her own life before all of this, hadn't she? One before she'd ever met Monika, and the others here in this city.]

I'm sorry. I didn't really stop to think about...

We don't have to talk about this.

[The last thing she ever wants to do is to upset her mother.]

[beariot]

N-no, it's... it's fine, Monika. [ Chariot took in a deep breath, before shaking her head. ]

If there's anyone I should be talking about this with, it's the people closes to me. That obviously includes you.

I suppose I just... I made a place for myself here. And I cherish it. I cherish the people I love. I cherish my daughter. I don't... have those things, back home. I don't have you, or Fang, or Ozymandius, or Kaede...

[loadme]

[She'd think about it every now again. And the idea that Chariot or Natsuru could want to go back home... it scared her. Kept her up at night, even.

She would bury those thoughts, and they would come back. But never had she discussed them out in the open like this.]

I guess. Um...

Do you... want to go back?

[The potential answer terrified her.

But she needed to know.]

I know that I want to stay with you. It makes me happy, and I want things to stay that way for as long as they can.

But you also deserve to be happy, too. Even if it's not... here.

[She's holding back tears, at this point.]

[beariot]

[ Ursula was quick to close the distance between them once she noticed those tears, wrapping her arms tightly around Monika, holding her as close as she could without smothering her. ]

I'm not leaving you behind. Even if I have to go home I swear by every star in the sky I will find a way to bring you with me.

[ Her and Kaede. Fang and Ramesses, much as she loved them, had places to return to. Kaede and her daughter... did not. And it weight heavily on her heart. ]

[loadme]

[There was no way she could promise that. No way for her to really... be able to guarantee. And to think that there was any real weight or worth to such a claim would just be filling oneself with false hope.

To set themselves up for disappointment.

And yet...]

I believe you.

[There was a faint smile, as she leaned into Ursula's warmth and closed her eyes.]

I really do.

[beariot]

I'm glad... A believing heart is the root of the strongest magic, after all...

[ It might have been a light statement, but... Monika had seen Chariot in that dream, how much that creed really did matter to her, to the person she still was beneath her guilt and trauma. ]