Morgan awoke to the gentle smell of pancakes and bacon, the light tweets of the morning birds and the most painful fucking headache she had ever experienced. She let out a tired groan and opened her eyes.

Had she not gone and flirted (unsuccessfully) with almost every male in the town of Tharsis last night, this would have been the single most stupidest thing she had ever done. The sunlight streaming in through the windows were like daggers thrown from a Nightseeker, and her mouth—

Morgan shot up and frantically patted the nightstand next to her, hoping that someone would have placed a cup of god's holy spring next to her bed. A cold glassy surface greeted her fingertips, and she greedily snatched the glass to gulp down all of the water, enjoying its delicious sweetness and icy texture.

"Not going to say thank you?"

Morgan looked upwards to see an annoyed medic with hair the colour of lavenders plucked from fields of wildflowers, his gaze like a- wait, hadn't she already gone through this?

"O-oh yeah," she sheepishly replied, "thanks."

The medic gave a stormy look of… contempt? "The Innkeeper wouldn't let me go so quickly. You know how much I wanted to leave your drunk ass in the inn? Hell, in the bar even." He rubbed his forehead and growled, "All of this niceness for nothing…"

A nonplussed Morgan stared at the new side of the medic. She hazily remembered a nicer male from yesterday that had the same face as this royal cunt—so what was happening? The dull drumming in her head silently suggested that this wasn't the time to argue back, even though she really wanted to. But still… a little thought provoking question couldn't hurt, right?

"You're angry and claim not to care about me, but deliver me a glass of water anyway?" Morgan placed a hand on her cheek. "Looks like you really do care."

"Actually, I just wanted to look good." The medic replied without hesitation. "If you genuinely thought that someone would help a flirtatious drunk like you without having an ulterior motive… well…" He started to walk towards the door.

Oh.

Wait. ULTERIOR MOTIVE? The words embedded themselves into Morgan's mind, running laps around her head, flying in circles and doing loops in the skies.

Ulterior motive.

Ulterior motive.

Ul. Te. Rior. Motive.

And she was drunk last night too.

"YOU HAD SEX WITH ME?"

The medic whipped around angrily, practically fuming.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, will you? My standards are WAY higher than that." And then he slammed the door.

Morgan sat down at the Inn's dinner table as a lady in an apron served pancakes and bacon with a cup of cold milk. She graciously said her thanks and dug in, savouring the delicious crunch of bacon and the soft texture of the pancakes. But even food was not enough to distract her from the bitter tang in her mouth.

"My standards are WAY higher than that."

Well, at least she didn't have to worry about anything else. Still…

She placed her fork and knife on the plate and left the inn, leaving behind a half-eaten pancake and full glass of milk.

Where to now? Morgan wondered as she watched the clouds drift past the sun. Trying to flirt with more men was a pointless task; she had already repulsed nearly all the men in Tharsis. Come to think of it, why had she wanted a male in her life? What was the strange driving force behind this strong desire in the first place?

"Hey, Morgan!"

Morgan continued to find shapes in the clouds. The irony behind it all—she wouldn't be wishing for home if she had managed to successful rope a male into marrying her.

"Morgan? Hello?"

If only a miracle could occur. If only she could find what she was looking for in the first place. If only-

"You ARE Morgan, right?" A male lightly tapped her on the shoulder, causing her to jump a bit. She then let out a low growl.

"If you're here to poke fun—poke fun at me from last night…"

"Huh?" The male blinked and stepped back a bit, revealing his Landsknecht garb and gentle wouldn't-hurt-a-fly appearance. "I'm- I'm actually here from last night for your skill in runes."

Morgan raised an eyebrow and folded her arms, silently prompting him to expand on this. His face had been blurred into the many faces of the other males she had flirted with, along with the flirting techniques she had used. Had she seriously tried to use a party trick to woo someone? With runes?

"Remember? You dropped sculpted ice cubes into my drink at the bar. It was pretty cool, you know?"

And he was actually impressed with it. Huh. Morgan sucked in a breath with her teeth clenched.

"Haha, so funny." Morgan deadpanned. Clearly he was poking fun at her. "Please go before impale you with an ice sculpture—you like the design of lance?"

The silence in the air was heavy as those last words left her lips. She had won—no longer would this man bother her with the stories of last night, no longer would she have to talk to this-

She felt the hands of the Landsknecht as they held her shoulders with a firm grip. Oh crap. A cold sweat broke out on her back as she spluttered out incomprehensible words.

"You can do that!?" He began to shake Morgan back and forth, his eyes wide with excitement. "You-you can do that? That's so cool! Please join my guild!"

…fuck.

The two explorers stood together awkwardly as they waiting in line for the rest of the explorers to register. Well, Morgan felt awkward. She wasn't sure about the Landsknecht next to her, who seemed to know everyone in the building at the moment.

The halls of the Explorers Guild were less dark than Morgan had anticipated. Less intimidating. Hell, the windows above her had boxes of flowers in front of them. When she glanced to the side, she caught a glimpse of a tall tower capped in light green and the splash of pinks and purples from nearby gardens. The city of Tharsis was quite beautiful—and yet she had only seen it as a place to pick up members of the opposite gender. She found herself staring outside for a longer time than she had intended. Anything to distract her from him.

"Oh yeah, Morgan!" The Landsknecht slapped the distracted Runemaster on the back, knocked her out of her thoughts. "This is the other member of our guild. Morgan, meet Nikkos. Nikkos, meet Morgan." He beckoned to a figure opposite her.

Puppy eyes and hair that was the colour of the fields of lavender.

Oh.

"You?" Morgan blinked and pointed at the medic. Then blinked again.

His eyes were just as innocent as the day he had taken her to the Inn after she had passed out. None of his hard anger from the morning, no storm clouds hanging over his head. It was like they were two completely different people.

"You two know each other?" The landsknecht asked. Nikkos nodded in his direction, then turned to face Morgan.

"I'm so glad you're up now!" Nikkos smiled a smile that only skimmed the edges of his eyes. "I'm excited to join a guild, aren't-"

Nikkos wasn't allowed to finish that sentence, because Morgan had pulled him away from the main hall, away from all the other explorers. She was going to get to the bottom of this total personality change, whether she liked the answer or not.

"What's up with you?" growled Morgan, her finger jabbing into Nikkos' chest.

"What's up with you?" retorted Nikkos as he dismissively swatted away her finger. "Who the hell do you think you are? You don't have a chance with Erick! At all!"

"What—what does this even have to do with your total change in attitude in public?" Morgan assumed that "Erick" was the overly excitable landsknecht.

"It's not just in public!" Nikkos bristled a bit, and then lowered his voice. "It's only Erick."

Morgan let her arm fall to her side as she felt her body and soul get crushed under the heavy weight called reality.

"It's only Erick."

Wow.

"Come on you guys!" Erick called to the duo as he waved sheets of paper around in the air, unsure of their exact location. "You gotta sign your names now!"

"We'll be over there in a second!" Nikkos answered back. Then he grabbed a fistful of Morgan's shirt, ignoring the fact that he was shorter than her. "You better not say a damn thing about this."

Morgan nodded half-heartedly and let herself be shoved back towards the wall.

"It's only Erick."

Gods, what a literal two faced asshole! And yet, both faces... they were both so perfect. It was wrong to feel this way, but she couldn't help it, couldn't stop her stupid emotions from acting the way they acted.

"This is going to take a while to get over." Morgan grumbled as she dragged herself towards Erick and the demon in angel's clothing.

Now that they had registered each other as explorers, the three huddled in the corner, trying to decide on a guild name.

"Name suggestions, anyone?" Erick asked while he skilfully twirled the pen in his fingers. "I'm thinking something cool, but artsy."

"How about, "Hazel Haven"?" Nikkos suggested, his eyes rather obviously fixated on the landsknecht's plain brown hair. Actually, now that Morgan knew what Nikkos was trying to do, it became painfully obvious when he was doing it. She rolled her eyes at Nikkos, who in turn shot her a death glare.

To Nikko's dismay, Erick shook his head. "It's really good, but we can only have eight characters in a guild name."

"Why's that?" Morgan asked.

"Because it's hard to remember more than eight characters?" Erick shrugged. "I'm not really sure myself."

"Or maybe because it's to make sure guild names can fit on the guild card." Nikkos piped in, again with that sugar-sweet tone. Erick nodded, clearly impressed. Had he just set him up just to impress him?

All of a sudden, a force with the power of three horses and approximately one gorilla rammed into the three of them, causing all of them to topple over and fall into a heap on the floor. Naturally, Morgan was unable to control her temper. Unlike Mr Two-faced here, who should be angry. She stood up.

"Oh—what the hell is happening now?" Her eyes glanced over to the object who had rammed itself into them, excepting a brick of some sort. Instead, she saw a girl clad in heavy armor with a large shield. Her blonde curls were tied into two childish pigtails, which heavily contrasted with her profession: a fortress.

The girl was quick to stand, her facial features hidden under her downward gaze. "Quick—hide me."

Erick was quicker to respond. He got up from his feet and hid the girl behind her, no questions asked. Such a heroic man. It was obvious why Nikkos liked him so much.

"Seen an asshole here?" A landsknecht with black hair strode up to them, each step a loud thump on the ground. Another girl was closely behind her, however her timid appearance did not seem as sure as her friend's. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding.

But the landsknecht seemed so sure that they were hiding something. Morgan bristled, readying herself like how tigers readied themselves to pounce, her hands growing hotter by the second as she readied her magic to open fire. Erick saw this and shook his head, silently communicating how bad of an idea it was to engage them.

The girl in the back tried to convince her friend, her sandstone eyes tired. "Come on, Amelia," she urged as she pulled on the hem of the landsknecht's shirt, "let it go."

"Can't." The landsknecht girl placed a hand on her hip. "She can't just insult me and expect me to not fight back. I'm gonna have to teach her a lesson, yeah?" Her eyes turned feral as her hands reached for the sword behind her back, her fingers twitching at the thought of a fight. Morgan felt herself shudder. If she was so eager to fight, she was probably more skilled in combat than her. Hell, better than the group even. She hid her burning hands behind her back, praying that the girl wouldn't piss her off too much.

Luckily her medic friend playfully shoved her away, nervously laughing as she did so. "Come on, we're just threatening random people now," her head turned, mouthing an apology to their group, "let's go get some snacks from the shops or something—I bet your brother's getting bored with all that waiting!"

Erick and Morgan watched as the two girls walked away, one more reluctant than the other. They both then heaved a sigh of relief, unware of how tense they were until now. Erick turned to the girl he was hiding behind him, signalling that it was all clear.

"Thanks for the help." The girl then paused and glanced upwards to meet the gaze of Erick. "My name's Pompela."

"Well," Erick knelt down and smiled warmly. "it's great to meet you Pompela, but I feel as if you should go and say sorry to those girls from before."

Pompela ignored this, waltzed over to Morgan and gripped both of her hands.

"I saw you in the bar the other day." She spoke quickly, her eyes practically sparkling with child-like curiosity.

Morgan blinked her tired eyes as the word "bar" hit her for the third time today. Why couldn't they just let her go? Let bygones be bygones, instead of seeing them as things to bring up every time someone saw her—why the hell had she gone and flirted with half the men in Tharsis? Why?! Her eyes darted towards Erick, a silent plea for help. But of course, he was unable to read the atmosphere. And Nikkos was no use—he was on the floor from the previous attack.

She took a deep breath. Exhaled. Inhaled again. Exhaled. Ok. This was ok.

But before she could began to deliver her sharp tongue lashings, Pompela started to talk again. "I thought that was super confident of you. I kinda want to learn from you, actually."

Oh. Morgan felt a weight roll off her shoulders. "Thank you then, I guess."

The two awkwardly stared at each other in silent appreciation for a bit.

…one second.

…two seconds.

…three second-

"Can I join your guild?" Pompela hurriedly cut in. Erick nodded enthusiastically, but Morgan seemed sceptical.

"Don't you need your parent's permission? You know, like permission slips and stuff." She eyed Pompela up and down, noting her short stature and childish pigtails. Though, if she had already made it all the way to the Explorer's Guild, she would have probably gotten her mental parental permission slip signed. And another thing: why was Erick so...open to new members joining his guild out of the blue-

For the second time that day, she was beat down with the force of three horses and one gorilla. Her cheek hit the cold hard floor, then her skull—

Then she was out cold again.

wow please never do that to me ever again
im dead from the shock of finding out what happened to my doc lol