It was the usual quiet night in the Hasdrubal household as the two residents of the house sat across from each other at the dinner table. On one end was the daughter, Boscha Hasdrubal, potion track student, Grudgby captain and all around one of the top students in Hexside. The teenager sat quietly, one hand holding onto her fork that she occasionally dipped into her meal and brought up to her mouth, the other on her scroll as she checked the latest updates. Opposite her sat her mother, Hana who was likewise silent while eating but paused, placing her fork down to speak. "So..."

Boscha's apathetic expression quickly turned into a frown as she took note of her mothers voice. She had to know this was coming eventually: Small talk. The woman always had to look for any reason to engage in some form of dialogue with her at some point before the meal was done. It never failed. The daughter didn't even look up from her phone, her third eye doing the job for her as it trained upwards to cast it's gaze across the table.

"How was school?" Hana asked to her daughter's annoyance.

"Fine." The girl answered simply as she continued to scroll through the various updates, liking one, leaving a rude comment on another and going through her regular routine.

This was the usual fair for the two. Hana would ask a question or two about the days activities and she would receive a simple and less than enthusiastic response that would shut down the conversation. Then the two would go back to eating, finish their meal, clean up and prepare for the next day. Despite her best efforts to reach out to Boscha, every night played out the same. Tonight however, she decided to put a little more effort into. "Great. So how is your Grudgby team doing? How are Skara and the others?"

Boscha's brow furrowed as she heard that name. She dropped her fork on the table and put her scroll down as well in frustration. "Skara's not on the team anymore, mom. She quit." The harshness in her statement was all too apparent.

"Quit?"

"Yeah, quit! She ditched me to join that loser Willow Park's dumb Flyer Derby team." She placed her hands on the table to look at a new alert on her scroll. The picture on the screen showed an update on Skara's Penstagram page with her and the other members of Willow's team. A snarl formed on her face as she looked in disgust at the image.

Hana reached a gentle hand across the table and rested it on Boscha's to ease the teen's anger. "Oh sweetie, I'm sure you two will work things out. She is your best friend after all."

Boscha quickly pulled her hand away in a defensive manner. "Was my best friend. If she wants to hang out with those losers, that's on her." Boscha looked down at the image and quickly blocked Skara on the service before putting the device away for a change. "Now I've got to spend my free time finding someone to replace her on the team."

"Things will work out, Boscha. You'll see." Hana said to her as she wore a smile. "You know what would help get your mind off of things? A relaxing day out. I could take tomorrow off and we could just spend the whole day together. How does that sound?" She joyously clapped her hands together at the thought and hoped that her daughter thought the same.

Boscha immediately looked up at her mother in a mix of confusion and annoyance. "Eww, gross mom. What self-respecting girl would want to be seen hanging out with their mother on a day out?"

The smile on Hana's face faded, replaced with a look of disappointment. "Oh. I was just trying to cheer you up, sweetie."

"You need to stop with that!" Boscha groaned. "Seriously mom, what is with you? You always want to do something with me. 'Boscha, could I join you and your friends? Boscha, I can chaperone you. Boscha, why don't we go to Palm Stings for the week?' Do you even have any adult friends? I have other things in my life outside of you. You really need to think about doing the same."

The elder Hasdrubal woman's demeanor completely deflated as she closed her eyes and recomposed herself. "I can see I'm bothering you." She said simply as he daughter got up from the table.

"Yeah, you are. I'll be in my lab." Boscha said coldly as she stormed out, leaving the room quiet once again as Hana took a deep breath before tending to the dishes per usual. And as usual, any attempt to be a part of her daughter's life was promptly and coldly shot down.

The triclops girl marched to a wooden door at the end of the hallway. The frame had been reinforced with steel plates as a sign hung from it that was blank until Boscha flipped it to the other side that read "Work In Progress". She closed the door behind her and descended a stairwell that led to yet another door, this one made of heavy solid steel that she opened and closed behind her as well before locking it and switching on the lights.

Illuminating the area revealed a decently sized work area with several tables covered in ingredients and equipment for potion making. In the corner sat a large cauldron for mixing the final product that would be put into the various vials and containers that lined the walls. The lab had been her mother's years back but after starting on the potion track, Boscha was gifted the room to help advance her studies while Hana moved her work to a much larger area outside the house. The three eyed girl was still quite angry as she sat down on a stool at her primary work station where several books were already opened to marked pages and a series of hand written notes for a certain formula she had planned.

All the commotion had awoken her palisman, Maya as the crab scurried out of her resting place that her owner had made up for her when she couldn't take her along with her. Boscha took notice as Maya surprisingly scaled the side of her work table and made her way onto the flat surface on top as she nestled against her owner's arm. The action rewarded her a few gentle strokes on her shell from Boscha who, despite her rough exterior was more than willing to show the palisman affection, more so than she would anyone or anything else. "Thanks girl. I swear you're the only one who understands me."

Boscha turned her attention back to her notes as she looked to where she had left off. This project had nothing to do with any class assignment and she'd only come back to it every so often when she was having trouble with her friend group which seemed to be more and more frequent as of late. She did her best to keep this under wraps as Hana would certainly not agree with what she was doing, not that she cared a great deal what her mother thought at this point. The woman had seemed to change over the years in an odd way and it made Boscha cringe just thinking about it. She soon brushed off the thoughts of that and got back to work.

Maya shuffled over to the notes and seemed to look them over herself as she gave several concerned clicks. Her owner placed a gentle hand on her shell once again to calm her. Meanwhile, Boscha's eyes continued to scan through the open text books and cross references as her free hand jotted down any useful information she came across. "It's okay, Maya. If everything works out, this will put things back the way they're supposed to be."