Dedicated to the anon that said this story was a waste of time. Thanks for the energy to write chapter 2 so quickly! :D


Edelgard followed the directions and pulled into a driveway. 257 Broadmoor Road. It was a small two-bedroom home with a car already pulled into the driveway. She carefully backed her car in front of the other car (a blue one) and got out, then wiped her brow. Two days of intense driving, around twenty-four hours. She had never been in a car for so long, let alone driven so long. But they were here now. Her head did pound a little bit as she saw someone peeking out the back door. She had never really been good with strangers due to how isolated she was, but she would have to get over it. If she wanted friends here, she would have to get out of her shell and talk to others. Plus, it wasn't like she could exactly ignore a roommate.

She approached the door and offered a hesitant smile and waved. "Hello. Are you Dimitri? I'm Edelgard Dreher, the roommate you've spoken to on the phone." This was nerve wracking but she had no way around it. Dimitri had at least sounded kind and warm, though a few phone calls and texts weren't a good measure of one's...everything really. She hoped that she hadn't landed in some sort of situation where she had a shitty roommate. She had read horror stories on reddit about stuff like that. For the time being, he had been pulling his weight though she and Hubert would definitely start doing that when they finally started their new jobs and got paid.

Ah, yes, I'm Dimitri Morozov. It's a pleasure to meet you, Edelgard. Is that Hubert?" His blue eyes shone as he looked out at the road and saw where Hubert had pulled the U-Haul in. Though his black car was blocking the driveway a little bit. Oh well. They'd get things taken inside and brought into the house soon enough. Hopefully Dimitri didn't have to leave anytime soon. It was the middle of a Saturday, so he should hopefully have the day off. She didn't know for sure, though. She'd learn his routine soon enough.

"Yes, it is." She looked back at their roommate. "By the way, would you mind helping us move stuff in? We don't have a lot, but it'll go faster if we all pitch in." Yeah, she could handle things since she was surprisingly strong for her size, but having another set of hands would be useful. She would help out as much as she could. "It's mainly there are a few pieces of furniture that'll be hard to move with me being how I am." She was only about 5'4" even if she did keep up with health. The dresser was a heavy nightmare as was the wardrobe. Hubert had had to have some moving guys come and help with that which hadn't been easy on their budget necessarily. But if the two guys handled it, she had a feeling it'd be fine.

"Of course not." Dimitri smiled and Edelgard managed a slightly less terrified smile. "Before that, though, have you two had anything to eat?" She shook her head. They'd just gotten on the road early that morning to finish up the last leg of their journey. She was honestly pretty famished. They could've stopped somewhere, but there had only been six hours left of their journey... They'd just preferred to finish driving instead of getting something to eat. "Why don't you come in and get something to eat then? There's no rush to get everything moved in."

"Fair enough." She walked over to Hubert and dragged him inside which he was none too pleased about. The lunch wasn't much, just some hot dogs and Kraft mac'n'cheese, but after not having eaten that morning, it really hit the spot. "Thanks." She smiled at Dimitri, really appreciating that he had thought of them. They'd had to reheat it, but he'd known their approximate ETA so he'd fixed something for them.

"It's really no trouble. Shall we get started then? Though there are a few people down the street that might be willing to help." Edelgard tilted her head at that. He had said he'd been living there for about a year so she supposed it made sense he'd know the people in the neighborhood. It was largely college students, so the faces probably changed a fair amount. Even so, she'd be grateful for any help they could get.

"Any help would be appreciated." She smiled at him as he placed a few calls over the next five or so minutes. It didn't take too long for a knock to come at the front door and Edelgard followed Dimitri out. Hubert, as usual, hung back to keep an eye on her. She swore he would be her shadow 24/7 if life didn't get in the way. He was overprotective, but after what had happened... She didn't entirely blame him. She would be so completely lost without him.

The door opened and a blonde woman with purple eyes walked in followed by a black girl with black hair and amber eyes. Soon after, another black woman with blonde hair and green eyes followed them inside. "Yo! So you're Dimitri's new roommates, eh? Nice ta meetcha." The blonde-haired woman grinned, her purple eyes shining. "Name's Yang Xiao Long. This is Blake Belladonna, my roommate and best friend." Well, she seemed...aggressively friendly. But it wasn't necessarily bad. It might make her easy to get along with.

"I'm Robin Asselin." The green-eyed woman smiled, though she had an accent that Edelgard couldn't really place. She wondered where she was from. It felt like it'd be rude to ask, though... She still had a lot of shedding of mindsets to do unfortunately. Even if she'd never believed in the church, she'd still absorbed a lot of negative mindsets...like racism. Considering Utah was almost entirely white...she had barely interacted with anybody that wasn't Caucasian.

"It's nice to meet all of you." She offered a small, shy smile to them. This was a lot of new people but... "Thank you very much for helping us unpack the trailer." Thankfully, they didn't have too much stuff. The worst thing would probably be the bed... They had only been able to afford one bedroom in their apartments and now in this house. It had felt so very strange and wrong at first when she had shared a bed with Hubert. Even if she didn't believe in the LDS church, she still absorbed their teachings as well as the extra stuff her father's group had added on. She wasn't even supposed to share an apartment with a man without being married, let alone a bed. She was supposed to remain pure. Well... She had gotten legally married to him shortly after moving out so she could get insurance. She would thankfully get her own through the new job she was starting in a few days... So they wouldn't have to hold onto that any longer and they could get divorced as well.

Life was weird.

"It's really no problem. Just tell us where to get started and we'll do it." Robin smiled and Edelgard led them outside to the trailer. Within about 45 minutes, they had gotten everything squeezed into the small bedroom through Jenga and Tetris. The bed had to be large enough to hold both of them, so it was a decent size. It didn't help Hubert was almost a full foot taller than her at 6'2"... So he required a larger bed. At least they could fit everything in.

Afterward, they all dropped down into the living room though the furnishings were a bit scarce. A couch was all that was inside. So they mostly just grabbed chairs from the dining room and sat down. "I really do appreciate the help. It probably would've taken us a couple hours to get all of this figured out on our own." The wardrobe and the dresser really had been the worst part as she'd suspected, though the bed had been not too far behind. Getting the bed frame set up, then the mattress on it... What a mess. She was glad the others were willing to put up with her despite having just met.

Yang grinned, her purple eyes shining. "Nah, no biggie like Robin said. We really don't mind. Dimitri's pretty strong, but the more hands you have around, the better." She chuckled. "You should've been there when we first moved Weiss in. She brought way too much shit. She comes from a pretty affluent family in the NYC area, so she had no idea how much smaller a middle-class house was going to be. She brought enough shit to fit in the entire house!" She laughed a bit loudly. That sounded like a headache and a half. She was glad that they'd been living in a one-bedroom apartment for the past couple of years so that way they didn't have too much stuff. Salt Lake was such an expensive place to live. But she had needed the public transit so they couldn't exactly move away immediately.

"That sounds like a mess," she agreed. She wasn't sure who this Weiss character was, but she sounded like a character for sure. Affluent people really had no idea how much struggling others did until they got out on their own. She honestly had had no idea how to budget in the slightest when she'd left her home. Hubert had at least helped her with driving and getting her permit and all of that. He'd used his connections to land her a data-entry job that was quiet and didn't require too much face-to-face interaction. She was downgrading to a cleaning job mostly overnight so she could have flexible hours to go to school.

"Ah well, Weiss just didn't know any better. She's learned better since then. Though she still doesn't entirely understand the value of money sometimes... Mama's paying for her rent and everything. Her family's a big wig corporation." Yang shrugged and Edelgard rested a finger on her chin.

"What do they do and what's her last name?" There...might actually be a chance she could know of Weiss. The Hase family ran a big insurance company that had been in business since the 1920s. She was no longer part of the family and had changed her name to distance herself from them. It helped her get a new beginning entirely. People would know who she was if she used the Hase name in Salt Lake. But now she was just Edelgard Dreher, not Evi Hase.

"They run the Schnee Pharmacy Company." Ah. Yes, she recognised that name. She was glad she'd changed her name because Weiss might very well recognise the Hase name. Pharmacy families especially if they went back far enough definitely were quite the lucrative business. She at least didn't have to worry about Weiss recognising her at this point... It was truly a clean start.

"I see. I think I've heard of them." She really didn't know though. "So what are all you majoring in if you're students? And where are you in your studies?" That seemed like a good place to start. "I'll be going into social work." She knew it was a hard job and that it'd be mentally exhausting at times but...she really did want to help people. She didn't know what better field there would be. She would hopefully be working with adults. Though she would be starting from scratch... She hadn't been able to start straight out of high school due to her father kicking her out.

"I'm going into elementary education," Dimitri said. Oh, that was sweet... She honestly wasn't sure if she'd be able to handle kids personally. But if he was drawn there, who was she to say anything against him?

"I'm going into history. Not a lot of people know about Regna Ferox. There aren't any US universities that offer Feroxi studies." Edelgard tilted her head at Robin's words.

"I...can't say I've ever heard of it. Where is it?" Was that a country? A city-state? She had no idea. She really hadn't been allowed to study too much outside of her school curriculum and what was approved by the church. She had at least managed to get to the library every so often after she'd been kicked out and learn more about the world that way. She was still woefully lacking in her knowledge of the world.

"Northern Africa above the Sahara. I can understand why you haven't. Most people can't locate it on a map. Small country, maybe three-quarters of a million people. Really, really small." That did make sense. She didn't know a dang thing about Africa or where people came from. She'd been in an LDS-centric school, so she had been entrenched in the teachings of her church and their history for her entire life. She hadn't even really known evolution was a thing until she'd started really looking into sources like Mormon Stories. The interviews with Simon Southerton about genetics and such had blown her mind. She was shocked that people could track their ancestry like that.

"I'm going into counseling, probably gonna focus on school counseling. I have a lot of issues since my mom was only my dad's girlfriend and she left us shortly after I was born." Yang smiled a bit sadly at that. Edelgard frowned at that and nodded. She could only imagine. Her family had abandoned her so she could understand that. But to be abandoned shortly after birth? How must that feel?

"I'm also a history major, though my focus is on African-American studies with a minor in culinary." Blake smiled and Edelgard nodded. "You can honestly learn a lot about people through their food. I've been lucky and spent a lot of my childhood traveling the world with my parents. I speak a smattering of languages too. Spanish, Japanese, Cantonese, Italian, and a few others."

"That's...pretty impressive." Edelgard had taken a couple years of Spanish in high school, but like most people, it didn't really stick with her. She had grown up in such a small, restrictive bubble. Church, school, and home. That was about all she'd been allowed to do or been allowed to go. She hadn't even been allowed to date. She had been betrothed to a boy in another part of their group, but with her getting out just in the nick of time... She wouldn't complain. Her marriage to Hubert was strictly platonic but she'd never found anybody else around her attractive…

"Yeah, I grew up pretty privileged to be able to travel so much. Though I don't really feel any connection to black culture I'm probably supposed to feel..." Blake sighed and rested her cheek in her hand. Edelgard could...kind of understand that. She had honestly always felt like an alien in Utah culture since she'd never truly believed in the LDS church. She knew there were non-LDS people around her but she had never connected to any of them. She wished she could've afforded to go to some sort of THRIVE event put on by the Open Stories Foundation. But getting the time off also would've been hard... Her life was such a mess. Maybe there were some exMo people here in Fayette Springs, though she wasn't sure about that. Maybe through ...?

"I didn't travel much, but I never felt much connection to Utah's culture, so I suppose I can understand to some degree. I'm unfortunately just starting my gen eds this year... I'm guessing most of you already into your bachelor's degrees?" She felt like an idiot for not being able to start college until she was twenty. Some people took gap years and plenty of missionaries went to BYU for a year before going on their missions. But still... She simply hadn't understood the world enough in order to try to navigate it. But Hubert had helped her navigate things. He was transferring his gen eds from Clear Lake University to Willow Park College so that way he could start his criminology bachelor's.

"I'm heading into my Master's degree this next semester…" Robin said, making Edelgard blink. She rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah, I'm basically a genius. I've been in college since I was fourteen. I'm eighteen now. I already finished my gen eds and my bachelor's. Going for my PhD since I'm gonna need some firepower behind me to get what I want." Wow... She hadn't expected that. To need someone of her intellect... Not that she or Hubert were stupid by any means but…

"Impressive. If I need any help with anything, do you think I could ask you for help? I haven't been in school for two years so I might have forgotten some things..." Edelgard rubbed the back of her neck. She really didn't want to fall behind in her classes. She was trying to get through her bachelor's as quickly as possible, so she was taking eighteen credit hours per semester. On top of working a full time job so that way she could help pay the bills. Hubert made more than enough at his current job in order to pay but she didn't want to slack and be a freeloader. She hadn't understood anything when she'd started her last job which had been her first, but she had apparently performed admirably since they'd been reluctant to let her go. The pay was definitely a downgrade from her previous job... This cleaning job was at night, cleaning business after they closed. She still wasn't really used to people, so she preferred something that wouldn't have her interacting with them too much. At least she had a car to get her from place to place. It'd be difficult to with the limited bus system that AATA ran.

"Yeah, sure; I'd be more than willing to help you. What are your weakest subjects? I tend to study a little bit of everything even when not in class." Robin grinned.

"Probably science... I was so sheltered in religious fundamentalism that my science knowledge was...severely limited." She was trying to study some things where she could, but she was often so tired after work that she didn't have anything left to give. Hubert would just hold her while they snuggled up on the couch while she recuperated. She just wasn't used to being around people and associating with them. It was mostly alone, but there were still parties and get-togethers and team building exercises and... Ugh, it was too much for her sometimes...

That got a sympathetic glance from the other women. "Yeah, I can definitely help tutor you in that."

"Is there anything I'd owe you?" She knew that a lot of tutoring often required money. She...wouldn't have a lot of extra to spend. She had really downgraded from being a data entry clerk. But she needed the more flexible hours to be able to go to school. What a mess... Most classes were during the mornings and afternoons so she couldn't be working a general 9-5 job. She wasn't much of a night owl, but she would have to become one really quickly in order to work the hours this new job wanted her to. The company seemed pretty kind and she'd at least be continuing to work relatively alone. Most businesses would be closed at the times she was working. It was banks and offices that she'd be cleaning. At least there were no restaurants and such... She couldn't imagine being in the food-service industry. It would overwhelm her with the sheer amount of noise and how busy it was.

Robin shook her head. "Just pass your classes is my only real requisite. I know I could make decent money from tutoring folks, but I really don't feel the need to ask for money. I just like knowing I've helped people." She smiled and Edelgard returned it. She was glad. She wouldn't be able to keep up with paying with how she'd dropped from a 50k job down to about 31k. Hubert, as usual, maintained an affluent job due to his connections. Even with his father kicking him out as well, he had his own connections he built over the years. He would probably be picked up by some sort of university almost immediately upon graduation.

"Okay. Thank you. I really do appreciate it." She had no real knowledge of science or biology and she was going to really be lost once she started taking those basic biology and geology classes... She'd been taught creationism her whole life. She had never really believed in God in the first place, but she wasn't aware of an alternative until shortly after. She had her high school diploma, but most of her learning was through the strict lens of extreme fundamentalism... She really hated how limited her knowledge of the world was. She had no idea about anything in the world like other cultures, languages, or anything like that. Well. Unless one counted a few years of Spanish that she had completely lost over the past few had never really stuck in the first place, but now, it was just gone.

"Anyway, we should probably get going." Yang stood up and Blake also did. "If you'd like to get to know us more, feel free to let Dimitri know." She grinned. "Honestly, a little party to welcome you might not be a horrible idea." Edelgard blinked and rubbed the back of her neck.

"I'm not really a party sorta person. I avoid social gatherings as much as I can." She hated parties and being the center of attention. She would probably never go to a club or a bar. It was far too out of her comfort zone. Plus...she had no real interest in alcohol. Part of that probably came from having the Word of Wisdom shoved down her throat, though. No coffee, no tea unless it was herbal, no alcohol, no drugs... Though a closer reading of the entire revelation revealed that the church tended to pass by over a lot of things in the Word of Wisdom... She put the thoughts out of her head.

"Dinner then maybe? Weiss and you might get along. You're both pretty quiet and reserved. Then there's Takumi, Oboro, and Cami. Again, you might get along with Cami, possibly Takumi. Takumi and Weiss get along great since they really love animals and nature. We could just do a bit of a potluck, everyone brings something, then we just sit around and talk. How's that sound?" Edelgard really wasn't getting out of this, was she? But that sounded nice.

"I suppose I could do that. When should we plan it for?" She could handle a quiet dinner gathering. Though that was a lot of people. Her, Hubert, Dimitri, Yang, Blake, Weiss, Cami, Oboro, and Takumi... That was a lot of people. A lot. Nine people.

"Maybe tomorrow night? Also my little sister's gonna tag along too. She doesn't really like being left alone." Oh, so ten people. She practically wanted to faint. How would they all fit into this room? That was so many people. She wanted to cry, but as long as it was just a quiet dinner thing, she could handle it. No crazy Christmas party with a white elephant exchange or anything like that. She would probably be worn out afterward though. She had never thought that making friends would be so exhausting...

"Okay." With that, the other three women left and Edelgard looked at Hubert. "How about we go unpack?" Again, she at least didn't have too much going on... They could probably be fully unpacked by the end of the day. All she had was mostly clothes...

"All right." Hubert nodded.

Edelgard got up and looked at Dimitri. "Thanks for lunch, by the way. I'll probably be curled up in the room for the rest of the day, so I'll see you tomorrow." She hoped he wouldn't take that as rude. The trip had been long and exhausting in its own right, then all of this. She really, really needed some decompression and rest time. Not just get to the hotel, sleep, shower, then get back on the road. The past three nights had been terrible due to being like that...

Dimitri shook his head with a smile. "I don't mind. You've had a long trip. Go rest up." Edelgard was glad. She really hasn't expected getting to the house to be such a crazy whirlwind. But with Hubert in tow, they headed into their room to start unpacking and wind down for the day.