Backwoods

3: Betrothed Buddies

Nate is considered the least competent of the wardens, and that says something, considering the competition.

At the young, strapping age of seventeen, one would assume he hovers above most of the junior wardens, at the very least—certainly in age—but in reality Stryker may have denoted the pink-haired boy as a Lost Cause and moved him up anyways, just to get it over with.

He exits the elevator, his shoes scuffing the carpet, as he doesn't even bother to lift them the meager amount it would require not to. He pauses, for no discernible reason, and fiddles with the goggles tied about his neck. The image of a person glints off of the edge of the glass, and a crude, awkward grin sketches over Nate's face. He doesn't step anywhere closer to the kid—a redhead. Small redhead. Probably a new recruit.

It just sort of makes him suffer about of extreme nerves.

Lucky for Nate, a blonde girl in a short, flouncy dress swings by to save him from the moment. His attention wavers toward her.

"Naaate! You're back already? Aww, I wanted to wait for you and—and meet you by the front! Heheh... not that this change of plans makes me sad." Her pale skin flushes easily; her voice carries the bulk of a northern accent that, without her cheerful demeanor, would play her off as haughty.

He turns, his green eyes shining. "Hey, Penny!" She bumps against him in an embrace. Her head just about grazes his shoulder. She's three years below him, but by the way she carries herself, she casts a mature spell over herself. It might appear Nate would find this offensive. He hardly notices. "Yeaaah, Liu Ren decided things'd be better off if he finished dealing with the rogue vivosaur on his lonesome. That just means I get more time with you, sooo who cares." His laugh is warm, exuberant, like his sunshiny demeanor.

"Oh no..." Her cheeks puff into a pout, distorting her voice into a warble. "Another failure..? I'm sowwyyyy..."

Nate grins again. "Naaah, naah," he waves it off, "it's all good, babe. No worries."

Even as a junior warden, Penny stands the much more diligent of the two, which is funny in a way since she wouldn't even be a warden at all was it not for Nate.

"Stryker... Is Stryker mad?" Penny's sky blue eyes cloud of worry.

But Nate waves this off as well. "I don't think so. He's sort of done with me at this point."

"Nnnh! Naaate, you have to take your responsibilities more seriously or Stryker will yell at you again... Y-You knowyou're not as bad as you pretend!" Her head starts bobbling with her words. "Really! If you just put more effort into being a warden and—and taking practice seriously, I-I'm sure you could even best Mei—"

"Whoaaa now." The pinkette gently shakes his head, taking Penny's small hands in his larger freckled ones. "That ain't gonna happen." There's his grin. "It's nice to know you think so highly of me though. Heheheh..." His ears go a little red.

They've known each other since forever. At this point, red ears are a given that won't dissipate no matter the circumstance.

Penny finally glances away from Nate for the full split second it takes to notice the guy sort of crumpled over the carpet near them. "Oh! Na-Nate! Wh-Who's that!" She edges near it, he lip bravely pressed out, one sandaled toe nudging the kid's shoulder.

"I-I dunno," he mumbles, exasperated already. "Don't know if I wanna find out."

"Well I do! I-I think weshould find out, Nate! Maybe he's a new junior warden!"

This line of thought pleases Nate much less than it does Penny. "C'monnnnn, babe... You don't have to make friends with everyone..."

"No..." She snaps to attention. Her two tails of hair shake with her head, the scarlet bows tied at the top quivering. "Nate, it's important to befriend others. As wardens, it's our responsibility to get to know the people we serve so that we can better serve them!"

"Ehhh..." Nate sort of yawns. He's a little squeamish. His hands go into his khaki pockets.

Penny pouts again, her cheeks pinking with the quirk of her brow. "This is important, Naaaate..." He continues staring off into the distance. She finally gives in. "Nnngh, fine... be that way, you stubborn, adorable... Ahh, but I'm checking up on him now!"

Nate sputters into the abyss of obsolescence he falls into every single time this woman disagrees with him. "Ahh, fine! Okay! I'll help you!"

Besides, her thoughts are usually a lot better than his thoughts. So it works out.

The two crouch in front of the weird redhead and try to coax him out of his nodo-like shell. They don't get much of a response for some time. Eventually Penny gets a little impatient and pulls the boy up to his height and shakes him. A little bit, nothing harmful, Penny can't muster anything much more than a gentle nudge. At this point Nate takes him away from the blonde and tries to straighten the poor kid out. He's shorter than both of them—practically at Penny's chin. And his clothes are annoyingly well-made. This bothersome notion fills Nate's throat at the sight of this cheeky boy in his expensive... playwear.

And then the kid stirs. "H-Heeeey..! Who're you two!"

What was that, three voice cracks? How old is he, eleven?

Nate considers making the kid, say, introduce himself first, but Penny is not about that kind of life. "Hello! It's very nice to meet you! I presume you're one of the new... ummm, junior wardens?" She smiles kindly, her eyes crinkling at the edges. She's too good for this earth. "I'm Penny, and this is my betrothed, Nate!" One of her small hands points him out; his ears burn with the red of a flash fire.

Calling it "betrothed" always gets his ears red. It's just one of those things that, despite its permanent existence, despite the fact that it's been years, here it is again.

"Buhhh?" sputters the boy. "Yeaaah, I'm a... I'm a junior war—Heey..." His mind starts kicking in. "Heeey, you're way too young to be betrothed... that's like for big grown ups and stuff... And wardens are all big grown ups with no hairlines, and... and... you're not!" Incredulously, he touches his own head. "You have hair!"

Penny cringes. But it's a cute cringe, since she's Penny. "Um, is there an age limit? On any of those things?" Her voice mellows. "I... believe not." Back to her smile. She pointedly doesn't address the hairline thing. "I've been betrothed to Nate since we were children, actually. Heh, it's... a little complicated, but I've known him for my entire life and I know that... well..."

Not a lot gets her to stumble and blush like that, but it's always super precious when she does.

The kid puffs his cheeks next. "Well? Then you better have a reason!" His eyes glint as if they're saying, or else you're a scrub. What a, what a painful insult to be dealt. Geez.

Nate slowly exhales. He's one of those kids. "Yeah, sure." One of those silly kids who probably plays Fortnite and screams for a solid thirty seconds every single time someone kills him. "So my mom was a really... let's say striking therapist. So she's always been a little intimidating, but if you can get over that, she's... really good. I think at least. The people who went through with her all seem to be living their best lives. But, well, doesn't look it until you go through with it. And my dad's the coolest janitor of all time, so that's out of the question. She's a janitor with him when she's out of patients, haaaaa, fun fact, they are the most happiest janitors that will ever—um—" he catches Penny's weak gaze and moves on. "Anyways my mom met Penny's mom at a really rough patch in life and helped Penny's mom out.

Nate sort of pauses here. "And Penny's family have a lot more money than my family. Putting that out there now. N-Not that that's a very difficult achievement to get, when you're, uh, comparing my family to..." He breaks into his own sentence to mutter, "But she has self-flushing toilets, and a cool butler named Manfred..."

Their kid breaks in on top of him. "That doesn't make any sense, you stupid heads! What does money have to do with anyyything?"

Penny's cringe returns. She takes over, glancing and smiling weakly at her betrothed. "Well... When my mom realized she was pregnant, Nate was already around, and our parents decided that they wanted us to, um... be together. So we... grew up like that. Our families have... done a lot for each other I gu—"

"What, was your mom like infertile or something for a super long time?" Alright. This kid needs to chill. Now he's like that Minecraft kid who took all your stuff, so then you take all his stuff and he actually goes haywire like a monkey let loose into a banana store.

"I-I don't really know..." Penny laughs weakly, her hand cupping her cheek. "I never asked. I... respected her privacy." Unlike someone they just met. "I just know she was in a lot of pain, and now she's a lot better."

She and Nate share a private little smile. Sensing her discomfort, he swoops in again. "Aaaanywayssss, what's your name, kid?"

"I'm not a kid!" he cries. Of course. As they all say. "I'm a whole thirteenyears old! I'm a teenager!" Oh goodness, don't hurt yourself, kid. "Torner the teenager!" There he goes, sticking his little chin up like he's so proud of it.

"Heh. You sound like a really prideful power ranger..." Nate giggles quietly at the ceiling.

And that's all he can think to say... so then there's this silence. Penny's off somewhere else, her brow furrowed into the unending question of whether or not speaking to this kid was a mistake. Nate's gaze hasn't left the ceiling.

Torner cuts back in. "My parents are mailing my NS so... so you should play with me when it gets here." The way Torner sees it, the more people he can invite over to his room, the more people he can show off and beat at Mario Kart. It's, uh, more fun than... playing against computer players... since his aunt and uncle never let him play online...

"Oh my gosh! You have an NS?" The pinkette's voice raises. "Maaaan! I want an NS! Pennnnyyyy, if my mom wanted to get me an NS for my birthday, would your pare—"

She drops her gaze, giggling. "You know how my parents feel about video games..."

"Wow!" Torner shrieks. "Your parents sound terrible!"

Penny's face goes red. "N-No, they're not! They"—her eyes are sharp—"They let me run away when Nate passed the Warden Exam and—and even paid for my entrance when I couldn't pass it myself!" Then she sort of slaps a hand over her startled expression.

"Pffff! Oh, Penny!" Nate shakes his head, smiling gently. "Babe, heey, it's okaaaay..." But he can't quite get his mind off of the NS. His head tilts back toward the newbie. "You... You serious, man? Your NS is... a thing? That you have? And it's gonna be here soon?"

He makes his way toward his betrothed as Torner pipes up, grinning feebly. "Yeah it is! And all my games and—and my controllers too! I have four!" Though he's... only ever played with one other person. Hah. They don't need to know that though. Besides, Trixia's so bad that she doesn't count as a, a person, she's like a computer player that isn't in with the gang.

"Four?" Nate perks up. "Heeey! We should go find Roland and get him to play too! He'd be so down for that!" And with that, the pinkette's off running toward the junior warden side of the floor, Penny meekly trailing after.

She mumbles, "Naate, he takes his studies very seriously, you know... he might not wanna—"

"Naaaaah, it'll be fiiiine." And Nate brushes that off too, so that's that. Penny doesn't try to fight it as hard this time. She still retains a fragment of a grin from Nate's whole excitement about the NS thing. He gets so... excited. It's so cute. He's so endearing, a little pink fireball of mirth.

Not long after, Torner actually does get his NS—and some books he's never read and never will read—and some really dorky pajamas—and a toothbrush he loses immediately after taking it out of the box. And a few other sundry items that he leaves in the package. Even the toothpaste. Especially the toothpaste.

It takes them like half an hour to try and fit together the stupid NS, but it turns out that nobody knows what they're doing. Plus, Torner's tablet is dead, so it's the console or nothing. Nate gets this idea to go pester some guy they all call Little downstairs and well, if he can get the NS plugged in, then there you go.

The whole horde of them thunders downstairs afterward. Except Roland, that is. Roland prefers to study his warden notes. He is a much better student than both Penny and Nate combined, though Nate doesn't bring much to that total, so it's not much of an accomplishment.