In the Midst of Them [Rafaela, Inanna]

That actually caught Rafaela just a bit off guard, though not so much so that it showed or anything. This girl was from Vastime? Why was she here, then? That wasn't just far, it was a hostile territory, as far as she knew.

"You're pretty far from Vastime out here, huh? Taking a little break to come fight crime by the sea?"

As always, she spoke in her usual confident, assured way, but beneath that there was the actual curiosity that even made the question come up. After all, Rafaela was pretty interested now. She'd been assuming a bit much about this girl, but there might actually be more to her than she'd have expected.

"I'm visiting my mum, she lives here."

Inanna explained with complete innocence that said she was far too naive to figure out that she was being passively interrogated by Rafaela who was just asking questions about her new friend's life. She should ask about her life as well, right?

So she did.

"Hey, where are you from Rafaela? You said you were a knight or something, right? Like a Sternritter?"

"Oh, is she a member of the Vandenreich?"

It was a pretty innocent question, thankfully, and even if Rafaela wasn't terribly aware in a lot of situations, she'd spent a long while as a criminal investigator. This was her bread and butter.

"I'm a Reichsritter. Not quite the same as the Sternritter. I'm one of the right hands of the Holy Roman Emperor himself. Impressive, I know."

Her cocksure grin only grew wider as she said that, knowing fully that it was quite the boast. She'd long since given up on the idea of anonymity in most of her investigations, given her fairly obvious appearance and her importance in world affairs now, but that was fine.

"Yeah, she just does desk work though. Mum is always at that desk if she can get away with it."

Inanna explained in further detail, glossing over the fact that Ninsianna also happened to be the Director of one of the departments within the Vandenreich and also former secretary to the grandmaster. The rank itself meant nothing to her, she just saw it as a desk job and it annoyed her but she had accepted it a bit more.

Her mum was free to do what she liked after all, if it made her happy.

"Okay, who's that? Is he like a big deal or something? Oh, oh. He's a ruler right, is he like Gilgamesh?"

He sounded important and it made her think of Ninsianna's story about the Sumerian King, would Rafaela even know who that was though?

"Oh, I see, I see."

Rafaela made a note that her mother probably wasn't too important, then, but anyone could still come in handy, at least in theory. Maybe she could meet the mom one of these days, but that was actually a pretty big risk. Maybe not, then.

"He's pretty important! He's king of a lot of Europe, and he saved a lot of people back during the war. Gilgamesh, huh? Haven't heard of him."

Any topic of mythology or classical literature was completely wasted on Rafaela.

"He was the strongest guy to ever exist on the planet and he killed the Bull of Heaven and made the Gods angry and they killed his best friend, so he went down to hell or something and discovered the secret to immortality but he lost it... Uh, and other things."

She summarised while spitting it out a little too fast for Rafaela to probably follow or have a chance to ask for more details. Inanna was just going and then she saw an alley, that was perfect for hiding away and showing off her magical girl form.

"Alright, in here. I'll show you my magical girl form. Let's go."

Inanna insisted while trying to drag the woman into the dim out of the way spot to show off her cool transformation that protected the innocent and upheld friendship and justice!

This all sounded like something that probably didn't happen, and normally, Rafaela would have said that was the case. However, she was dealing with a child here, and children were allowed to believe in fantasies and stories of old. With a grin, she simply nodded with a bit of excitement, until she followed the young girl into an alley.

"Well, go ahead. I'm sure it's pretty cool, right?"

Her grin was almost expectant in nature, though she didn't actually doubt that whatever she would see was legitimately impressive. Rafaela had a remarkable degree of faith in small children and their ability to discern what was or wasn't cool. Call it a natural instinct that tended to be worn away with age.

"Twinkle Twinkle Vanilla Star!"

She called out while closing her eyes to do her transformation sequence once they were nice and tucked away. Although there was one problem here and when she opened her eyes, Inanna realised that she still looked the exact same. What the heck was this? Summed up her own thoughts about it while she looked herself over, now what was going on here.

It always worked when she wanted it to work, just say the chant and transform. She was a magical girl though until she wasnt, that's what she said when she asked for that contract. What exactly were those parameters again, don't be evil or hurt people who aren't evil... protect friends and people that can't protect themselves...

Don't lose resolve.

"Oh. I think I know why it's not working."

Inanna said to herself a little deflated while recalling how she felt with her mother and how she didn't feel much like a magical girl in that moment.

Rafaela had, frankly, gotten so caught up in their back and forth about magical girls that she had honestly assumed something would happen when Inanna did her transformation. If she were a more intelligent woman, she probably would have just assumed that the girl was actually a normal young girl, but given that she seemed to know what had gone wrong, that didn't cross Rafaela's mind.

"What's up? Powers not coming to you or something?"

She knew supernatural forces could be pretty finnicky sometimes. Her own abilities weren't exactly beholden to much, so she wouldn't have been surprised if Inanna's transformation could simply not occur based on a whim.

"Something like that..."

She said more deflated than she was before, a moment or two to ponder it and be solemn until she shook herself out of it. Even if she didn't have the ability to be Twinkle Vanilla, she still was Twinkle Vanilla and her loss of power wasn't going to change that. Looking like that idealised form of herself didn't take away the fact that she is that person.

"But don't worry, I'll gettem back no trouble at all haha because I'm Twinkle Vanilla~ :hearts:"

Inanna said with a forced bit of her bubbly attitude coming back, a beaming grin and a V sign with her hand to try and sell it. She'd be fine, she was tough even if she had to pretend at the moment through the whole situation setting in.