<span style="font-style: italic">I’m afraid</span>, said this stranger, weeping in front of her, and the part of her that she had tried to shut off for being too forgiving, the part of her that Kire said had been what had made her a true Paladin, slammed into her consciousness. Whatever resistance Akira had to taking this man’s amnesia seriously dissolved upon seeing his face, no matter how much she tried to remain impassive. She had worn a look like that before, herself. Her conscience chiding her for her callousness, she sighed. “Yeah. Me, too, actually,” she said, her voice softening.<br/><br/>She got up to find a clean dish towel, then dragged her chair closer to him. Without speaking, she handed him the towel, tapping his shoulder and gesturing for him to wipe his face, while she took the ziplock bag, the ice inside it already beginning to melt, and pressed it against his head where she could feel a bump from when he hit it on the counter. Akira let him settle, sitting on the chair, still holding onto the now-moist bag. “Well, I guess, lucky for you that I found you,” she said, in an effort to lighten the mood. “Far as I know, I’m the only person in this world who has a clue how to help you, but to be honest I’m pretty much in the dark, myself.”<br/><br/>How much could you explain to an amnesiac off-worlder without making his head implode? Akira chewed her bottom lip. It seemed cruel now to find another rip in the fabric of spacetime and just unceremoniously drop-kick him back to where, theoretically, he may have come from without getting more information. Seeing that the makeshift cold compress needed replacing, she went to empty the bag and brought him the glass of water, sans Advil. Maybe dosing an alien entity with some foreign substance is a bad idea, but hey, water is water, right? “Drink. It might calm your nerves. Or at least help settle your stomach or something,” she said, grabbing his wrist and tugging it to get him to hold the glass.<br/><br/>“How are you feeling, though?” she asked him. “I, uh, I know it’s a lot to take in. Being in a weird place with some weird stranger.” Another awkward pause. “Thing is, this is all we know: you fell out of the sky. You come from another world. Now you’re here. But it takes power to do stuff like that. Rip the veil between worlds, I mean. That used to be part of my job, sort of. I came from another world, too.” Akira pursed her lips. “None of this is ringing a bell?”