Amongst Friends

~*X*~

The sky is trembling, and the world is drowning.

It's not safe for the Entelexia in the sky, Judith says, and she has Ba'ul take them down as lightning screams over their head, a flash of brilliant gold that tears through the heavens with all the fury nature has to offer.

They take cover inside the boat, and Ba'ul merely makes himself comfortable beneath a wide rock overhang that offers some shelter, and they prepare to wait out the tumult. But it's warm inside, and it's not all that bad. Words fly like doves between the friends as they laugh and chat amongst themselves, and soon Karol is putting something warm on to simmer.

Rita tries, she really does, grinning at the right times and rolling her eyes when the old man decides to say something stupid—which is pretty often. But she's still secretly nervous, unused to interactions like this after years alone, and she retreats to the edge of the room with a book on her lap and a pounding heart when the joviality becomes too much.

She tries to look absorbed in her readings, but she's really hoping that she'll notice.

And, of course, she does. With a quick murmur to Yuri she excuses herself from their current topic and walks over to the mage in the corner. She sits beside her friend without a word, but her blue eyes convey everything that needs to be said.

Slowly, Rita turns a page and pretends not to notice. But a smile finds its way onto her face before she can hide it, and God, she doesn't know why she gets so nervous around the princess. And she can't imagine how or why the princess would ever care enough to talk with her.

"Why are you sitting here alone, Rita?" Estelle asks, her tone soft and worried.

"Sitting near that much stupidity is a health hazard." Her response is flippant, dismissive, but the princess merely smiles.

"Oh but it's so much more fun with you there! Will you come back, please?" Her gaze is pleading, and her gloved hands are clasped in front of her as if in prayer.

Rita pretends to consider this, but her heart warms for the young lady beside her. Out of everyone in the group, she likes the princess the most, and she bets that somehow Estellise knows this. But the princess isn't the sort to take advantage of others.

"Sure, I guess." Rita says. She follows the delighted princess back to the group, and Estelle makes space beside her in their circle for the genius mage to sit on her right hand side.

"And then the monster went kablooey! And I turned around and stabbed the other monster and it went kaboosh!" Karol exclaims, his brown eyes as vivid as the lightning screeching outside.

"No no I was there," Judith replies with an innocent expression. "It was more like a kabishto me."

The conversation is utter nonsense, and it annoys her just listening to it. Rita is about to give both of them a piece of her mind, but then Estelle starts to giggle, and she finds her anger fading.

"Here you go, Rita darlin'." Raven hands her a bowl of soup and she accepts it with a cross remark about her not being his "darlin'".

"Careful old man," Yuri warns. "Rita has already put you flat on your face once today."

Raven simply waves their comments off, and as Karol and Judith start to argue over the correct sound to go with an exploding monster, Rita endeavors not to get too irritated with her companions.

Estelle catches her eye and smiles again. "Rita, I think the monster made more of a karoo sound. What do you think?"

Repede, at Yuri's feet, lifts his head in perplexity of the sound the humans near him are making.

And Rita can't help it—she laughs into her stew.