Chapter 14: Nasos: Starry-Eyed by warelander

F1 - Rec Room

On that very same day, while most students preferred to spend their Friday outside, in an attempt to find relief from the summer heat, do something other than sitting all day or deal with creeps wearing paper bags, only a few teens could be found scattered across the many rooms of the school.

The rec room, in particular, was largely deserted, the usually lively place now is very silent, with only one soul remaining. A senior girl with pink hair, who was tapping a pen on the desk she was sitting next to, staring at a blank piece of paper.

''I just don't get it. Did I really bonk my head somewhere and don't remember?''

Nasos

(Astro-)Logical Space Gazing Goof

''It doesn't make any sense. I saw it before so many times and I can never remember what it looked like!'' Nasos ruffled her hair in frustration, unable to recall the thing she had been trying to figure out for so long.

A frustrated sigh escaped the girl, as she directed her attention to the window near her. She didn't even notice when another person entered the room with a book in hand. The younger lass slowly eyed the room, noticing the older student and figured to not interrupt her.

''For so long I have been gazing out into the stars. So often this thing has come up, I wanna know what it is. What it means for the life way beyond our reach...''

Nasos simply kept gazing out of the window, lost in her own thoughts, no longer trying to sketch her discovery from her strangely faulty memory. One look at her pen quickly also told her that it was for the better since it had been totally chewed up.

''I really do need to drop that habit somehow.'' There were only so many pencils she could ruin and being in the same class as Schez&Co made it wise to not give them any kind of ammo against you.

All of the sudden, she was quickly ripped out of her thoughts at the sounds of things falling over and someone shrieking.

A quick look revealed that several books had fallen from a higher part of the nearby bookshelf, next to said literature pieces being a fallen over chair, and a smaller girl, who seemed a tad dazed from her fall.

With no hint of hesitation, Nasos walked over to the smaller girl, taking note of her appearance. She wore a green sweater so oversized that its sleeves covered her hands completely and a pair of baggy orange pants. Most curiously though was her green hair, not because it was green but because it had two large buns on the top covering what appeared to be horns barely poking out.

She could muse about that later though, right now she just wanted to check up on her.

''Hey, are you okay?'' She said, leaning down at the younger girl, who finally began noticing her and responded with a strangely startled reaction.

This did catch Nasos off-guard for a bit, she had seen shy students from lower grades before, but rarely one to this degree. Luckily she did seem to recover from that shock but still seemed rather unsure about her situation.

''Uhm. Y-Yeah. I just wanted to-to…'' The little girl said meekly responded, picking up one of the books...at least the best way her heavily covered arms allowed her to and nudged her head upwards the shelf.

Lidelle
Skittish Imp of Mystery

''Ah. Here, let me help you with that!'' Nasos offered, flashing Lidelle an inviting smile, hoping to ease the younger students' tension. It did seem to work as her offer was returned with a small, sincere smile. Lidelle handed the book over for the taller girl to put back. They did so for all of the books that had fallen off the shelf and less than a minute later, the mess was already cleared.

''See! All done with ease.'' Nasos proclaimed, dusting off her hands all the while.

''Yeah...Thanks-uhm…Tall woman?...''

''I'm Nasos and how about you?''

''Lidelle…''

''That's a nice name and nice to get to know you now too.'' Nasos leaned further towards Lidelle, extending her arm for a handshake to truly break the ice. Despite still seeming meek, the handshake was returned. Sure, Lidelle still preferred to keep her hand covered by her sleeve, but it didn't take away from the gesture.

''...Thanks, Ms. Nasos. I hope I didn't interrupt anything you were doing.''

''Nah. Don't worry about it, I was just thinking about something I saw while stargazing.'' She said, turning back to her table, feeling a compulsion to gaze back at the empty page she left behind, suddenly reminded again of how little progress she had made.

''You like looking at the stars?'' Lidelle asked, in a curious tone, seemingly more open to converse, which Nasos was glad to hear.

''Always did. The cosmos has always been fascinating me. Even when I was little I loved just looking at the stars in the night sky.''

''They are very pretty.''

''They are, but above all else, I love thinking of the beyond. The things we as average people will never reach or see up close. Space feels like it's so close and yet we will only ever be able to admire it from far away.'' Without even trying to be theatrical, Nasos turned her attention back to the window, gazing into the sky with a spark in her eyes that Lidelle couldn't see, but clearly could make out from the tone of her voice.

''And that's just the cosmos as we know it, Lidelle. There has to be so much more out there that we don't know about. The universe is so vast, maybe even endless from what we can tell, there is so much out there that nobody has ever seen or likely will ever see. Other planets, maybe even other sentient lifeforms.''

''You mean like aliens?'' Lidelle replied, absolutely entranced by the sheer passion Nasos was showing.

''Something like that, yeah. I don't believe in aliens the way science-fiction envisions them, because that's all based on imaginary ideas of what we think could be looming somewhere far away. Even then though, I really do think that something has to be out there, far away from our line of sight….or maybe even closer than we think…'' Nasos mumbled the last bit to herself, still thinking of the strange thing she still couldn't make sense of.

Regardless, she decided to not dwell on it for longer, turning back to Lidelle who seemed to have gotten more comfortable around her.

''Say, if you want I can show you some stuff I'm studying on if you are curious.''

''That would be nice, thanks, Ms. Nasos.''

And with that, the shy girl opened up enough to take a seat next to Nasos, so engaged about her talks about the far cosmos that she couldn't help but want to hear more. Nasos was glad to make the offer herself. Sure, her questions regarding the strange thing slipping through her memory time and time again remained unanswered, but being able to give a shy girl a place to be comfortable in was more than enough of a success in her eyes…

Authors' Notes:

WARE: Not gonna lie, this chapter went through a bunch of changes that made it take a while, but I am content with how it turned out. I just wanted to give Nasos a good introduction, since she is one of my favorite Quest characters and I do think it came out pretty well.