Ciara suddenly can't control her body and runs away from Gia, leaving her heartbroken.
Gia: starts to sob "She hates me."
Diana: "Ciara doesn't hate you; she just isn't comfortable meeting new people."
Oops, wrong move, Diana.
Gia: cries even louder
Christopher/James: pfft "Women."
Ciara: stops her legs from moving "What the—?" groans "This is SO embarrassing! I shouldn't have run away! Yeah, she looks... a little weird, but regardless—what am I, a toddler? I can handle a friendly face."
Ciara scolds herself, barely noticing someone creeping up behind her.
Christopher: "Hi, Ciara, what are you doing here?"
Barely.
Ciara nearly falls over in shock but Christopher grabs her hand and pulls her back up.
Ciara: "How did you get here? Are you secretly a ninja or something?"
Christopher: smiles proudly "It's concealment magic. If you focus really hard, you can conceal whatever you like—including sound. I could sneak up on you all day and you wouldn't even know."
Ciara: thinks "So that's how he did it. Why wasn't that included in the series?!" groans internally "Damn editors, hiding all the good stuff. What, do they think I'll get confused?"
Christopher: "By the way, why did you run away from Gia? Do you not like her?"
Ciara: shakes her head "It's not that... I mean, she seems nice, but it's like... too much enthusiasm? I've barely said hello and she's already planning our future sleepovers."
Christopher: laughs "Yeah, Gia is like really into making friends. You should've seen her when she heard you were born—she tried to sneak out of the dorms to meet you. The guards caught her, though. She was halfway through the secret passage before they even noticed."
Ciara: thinks "Okay, maybe I judged too harshly. She does seem like she'd be fun at a sleepover... if we were in a different dimension where I'm okay with the idea of having a best friend."
smiles awkwardly
Christopher: "She just wants to get to know you better. No harm in that, right?"
Ciara: sighs, thinking about how bad Gia must be feeling "I am here to improve this story, not make it worse. I mean, look at this plot—Ciara died because of her greed and indifference towards her family, and I'm supposed to somehow make this less tragic? Okay, Ciara, deep breath... you got this. You're the protagonist, right?"
Hopefully she understands that before her next trip to Nirvana. Hopefully..