For being such an important day to the manakete population in Ylisstol, it was almost bizarre how empty the parking lot at the community center was as Nah pulled up in her tiny car. She'd anticipated needing to park down the street instead of in one of the lots near the door, but she supposed that the snowy weather had something to do with people choosing not to show up for their night of revelry and celebration. The start of the year of the dragon was a big, important time for them all, and she was glad to be old enough to choose to come to the festivities rather than be dragged along unwillingly to them, but with the lack of people present she was beginning to suspect that there weren't many festivities to be had at all.

After parking and putting her gloves and hat on, she got out of her car and tramped across the snow-covered sidewalk to the entrance of the center, taking a second to look around at the eerily pink sky and the heavy snowflakes falling all around her before heading inside. The hallway was decorated with streamers and dragon-shaped banners that proved that something was meant to be happening, but she couldn't hear any music, any voices, or any other proof that people were actually there in the first place. "This is sort of a bummer," she muttered, kicking snow off of her boots as she passed by an empty room on one side of the hall. "If I'd known this was what I was agreeing to come to, I would've convinced Mom to just celebrate at home instead."

She shook her head, thinking about how much her mother had not wanted to be responsible for any year of the dragon celebrations that night. "But whatever, I'm sure there's someone here to make this worth my while." So Nah continued down the hallway, finding a single room occupied by a small gathering of people, every single one of which she recognized in some way. Her mother was there, as was her father, and they both greeted her with waves and smiles. Also in attendance were some people she'd grown up around, friends of her mother's that were involved in the manakete culture to some extent. Some of them were more devout than their family was, while others were not even close to as serious about tapping into their manakete side.

And then there was Morgan, standing off to the side of the room on his lonesome, his phone in his hand and his attention focused solely on whatever was currently on his screen. Nah's eyes lit up at the sight of him, and she used her small frame to squeeze through everyone else who was there to get over to where he was standing. "Let me guess, your mom's idea to come, wasn't it?" she asked as she got close enough for Morgan to hear her, his eyes immediately shooting up from his phone to look at her. "I get it, same here."

"She said that, because we've got manakete lineage somewhere down the family tree on both sides, it would be a good learning experience to come and see how you all honor your big year," he explained, tucking his phone into his pocket, only to pull it back out and show Nah something that he'd been looking at. It was a page on some shoddy website talking about manakete culture and how it was meant to be celebrated every twelve years, giving off information that Nah could only guess was half-accurate at best. "Then, get this, someone else who showed up started arguing with her and they took it outside to settle things. I don't think she's coming back."

"I can drive you home," Nah offered, knowing that a little snow didn't scare her, even when it came to getting all the way across town to where Morgan lived. "It's no big deal, and if you don't want to risk it in this weather, we've got space at home for you to crash."

"Hm, crash in the snow or crash at your house, I think I'd pick safety over possibly dying at your hands." Once again putting his phone away, Morgan was too preoccupied with getting his pocket stuffed properly to dodge Nah hitting at him with her now-removed gloves, which made for quite the weapon to wield. "Hey! I'm just saying, everyone knows you're not the best driver."

She rolled her eyes, but didn't try to refute that claim. She'd heard far too many times about her scary driving skills, and she wasn't even going to pretend that she was halfway decent at following the rules of the road. "Well, I probably shouldn't be offering up space at home without asking my parents first, but it's not going to be a problem. It's never a problem when they decide to offer the room to their friends, after all. So I'm committing to this."

"Dinah, aren't you going to come over and say a proper hello, instead of talking to your little friend?" The question came from one of the elder manaketes that she'd known all her life, and hearing her legal name being used didn't faze her too badly, but the combination of being addressed in such a way as well as being asked to turn her back on her friend made Nah instantly disinterested in heeding the request. It was only when it was posed a second time, with a bit more force, that she apologized to Morgan but promised to come back over to him, before going to meet the green-haired manakete revered as one of the most important in all of Ylisse.

"Sorry, Tiki, I was just…" Nah's apology didn't go anywhere beyond that, as she stared up at the older woman, someone she'd remembered spending time with for as long as she had memories. This was a woman that every manakete knew about, and even other dragon cultures were familiar with Tiki and her sage-like reverence. "I don't know what I was doing, honestly. You're not upset with me, are you?"

"Goodness, no! I've known Morgan since he was a child as well, I'll have you know. Why, once upon a time, his sister was meant to become an apprentice of mine in learning the ways of the culture, but she stepped away from that path for reasons I never understood." Tiki paused, looking at Nah with a playful glint in her eyes, before raising a finger to the younger woman's forehead and pressing it gently. "You, are you friends with Morgan's sister?"
"Y-yes, I'm friends with Lucina. Can you maybe not touch me?" Stepping back to get out of reach of Tiki's hand, Nah reached up and adjusted her hat so that it was properly covering her forehead, coming down right to her eyebrows. "I'm not even sure how these things are connected, Lady Tiki."

"They aren't, dearest Dinah, and there is no reason for you to think they are. But now that we've established you being friends with her…could you please do your best to bring Lucina back to the light of the church? It aches this old heart to see such a brilliant and promising young woman stray so far from her path." Tiki sounded so genuine and concerned that it would have been a request worth considering, had it not been completely illogical for Nah of all people to be given it. She wasn't one for being a part of the church either, having given that up at about the same time she'd started going to college, claiming that she didn't have enough hours in her week to make it all work.

But she wasn't sure if Tiki, in her ancient ways, was even aware of that fact, so she slapped on a forced grin and said, "Of course I can try, but there's no promises. At least the church still has people like Morgan going to it, which I'm…sure he's a good replacement for his sister. Totally sure."

She was positive that wasn't the case, but she was trying to get out of the conversation, something that Tiki didn't seem to pick up on. Thankfully for Nah, salvation came in the form of her mother, coming to collect her with a smile and a firm hand. "I'll be stealing Dinah from you now, Lady Tiki," Nowi announced without even a moment's hesitation, noticing the awkwardness that was beginning to brew. "It's important that we get our family time tonight, after all."

"Oh, of course. Good to be able to speak with you, Dinah."

"You too," Nah mumbled, as she was escorted away by her mother, who seemed beyond amused at what she'd just walked into. The moment they were no longer in earshot of Tiki, she turned to her mother and said, "Thanks for that, Mom. She was trying to use me to convert someone else. Can you believe that?"

"Given how many people she's directly responsible for having join the Church of Naga? Yeah, I completely believe that." Nowi, standing barely taller than her short daughter, looked every part the traditional manakete that evening, with her light green hair falling in waves and her ears, slightly pointed at their tips, poking out from underneath her tresses. In looking at her, Nah felt like she was in the wrong place, given that she'd inherited her father's hair and didn't have as much of a connection with the culture as she would've liked. Her only true manakete trait was her own pointed ears, which she framed with her bangs and her short braids that hung down behind her earlobes. "Why are you staring at me, Nah? Is there something on my face?"

She hadn't realized that she was staring at all, and being called out on it made Nah grow defensive in an instant. "No way! I was just thinking about tonight, that's all. Big night for a big year, and I'm actually old enough to understand what it all means."

"Not that there's much to it beyond tonight, if we're being honest." Rolling her eyes, Nowi made it overdramatic as she twirled her entire head to look around the whole room. "It's a lot of going to church and hearing sermon after sermon about what the Book of Naga says about the manaketes and what blessings they're meant to bestow upon the world but, like, do we really care about that?"

"Do you want me to actually answer that?" Nah scrunched her nose, knowing that her mother had only posed the question because of what she'd said, not because she was looking for a real response. "I'm looking forward to being able to connect a bit better with this side of who I am, because it really seems like it's irrelevant for eleven years then pops up as being super important for the twelfth year."

"And that'd be because it truly only is important every twelve years, whether we want to admit that or not." Nah laughed at her mother's honesty, which Nowi met with a chuckle of her own. "But you know what? I'm glad that I'm able to share this year with you. You're quite the well-adjusted kid to be thrown into this sort of nonsense, unlike…" She trailed off as she looked over to where Morgan was back on his phone. "Ahem. Did you hear what happened with his mother?"

Nah took a second to decide whether or not she wanted the chance to hear the full story, but chose to pretend like she hadn't heard a thing. "Sure didn't. I'm guessing she was supposed to be here but couldn't make it for some reason?"

"Ha, as if! She was actually here, but then that flighty broad Aversa walked in and started causing drama, and naturally Robin wasn't having any part of that, so they walked out and haven't been back. I'm hoping that Robin told her what's up and got her to never show her face around here again, but manaketes are stubborn and never learn their lesson, no matter how diluted your blood is." Taking in a deep breath, Nowi nodded at her presentation of the information, which Nah couldn't take with a straight face. "I know, it's quite funny to think about. Just imagine if we'd had more people here and it wasn't snowing, we could've gone out and watched a middle-aged woman catfight if we'd wanted."

Hearing the suppressed giddiness in her mother's voice, Nah felt almost obligated to point out that watching anyone fight wasn't fun in the first place, but she knew that the words weren't necessary. Instead, she looked past where Nowi was standing, over to where her father had grabbed himself a chair and was doing a bit of reading from a newspaper—and based on how he had the paper folded over itself, he was looking at the classified ads. "Are you aware you've got Dad here trying to get work done?" she asked sweetly, snapping her mother's attention straight to where the paper was now being flicked at. "I think someone forgot to tell him he's got to be a part of things."

"I'll set him straight, don't you worry!" With a wink, Nowi hopped backward and attempted to spin around with a dramatic flourish, but she ended up nearly taking herself out over her own feet, her stumbling over and falling into her husband's lap, disrupting the reading he'd been doing by causing him to have ripped the paper in half.

Her jaw dropping, Nah silently prayed that her name would stay out of any explanation for what had just happened, but her prayers went unanswered. "Dinah, why are you telling your mother lies about what I am doing? I was just doing some reading, there are no jobs to be picked up at this time of year." Her father's voice was stern-sounding, but the warmness that it carried was enough to tell Nah that she wasn't in trouble (as much trouble as a nearly twenty-four-year-old woman could get in from her parents, anyway). "And now she's here, like…this."

He gestured to how Nowi was laying over his legs, her hair brushing the floor on one side while her feet dangled on the other. "Look, I was just trying to get her to stop acting like a teenager about people fighting. I didn't come here to hear about women having a catfight, and I thought I could, you know, use you as a distraction or something."

"It would be appreciated if you chose someone else to be your distraction. There has been a lot of big news in sports lately and I was interested in seeing what it all was, but then this happened and my paper is no longer readable." He waved the two halves of the paper to demonstrate what he was saying, only for Nowi to reach up and snatch one of them from his hand. "Uh, what is that for?"

"I'm calling shenanigans on you for this one, Gregor. You've never been interested in reading about sports and—yeah, okay, there isn't even a sports section in this paper!" Kicking herself up back to her feet, in a feat of athleticism someone her age shouldn't have been capable of without injury, Nowi rolled the half of the paper she held and used it to bonk Gregor on the top of his head. "You were definitely taking time out of our special night to try and find some work to pick up. You don't have to lie about it."

"I already said, there are no jobs to be picked up at this time of year. Handymen, sure. Skilled tradesmen, naturally. Guys who can drive big trucks for hauling, of course. Men like Gregor here? Nothing until spring." Returning the favor by rolling up the half he still held and bonking Nowi's head with it, Gregor chuckled. "There is no sports section in this paper but there was a news piece on the situation anyway. Believe me or choose to not, either way I know I speak the truth."

Watching the display between her parents as they began bickering about if he was really telling the truth or if he was trying to cover himself anyway, Nah decided that she wasn't even going to give it any further energy and headed back over to where Morgan was still on his phone. "I'm back," she told him, watching him as he didn't even look from his screen this time. "Any news from your mother yet?"

"She said that she got so angry about seeing whoever it was that walked in here that she just, well, went home without me. So if I could cash in on that room offer, I'd really appreciate it." It was then that Morgan looked over his phone to see Nah's eyes staring straight at him, unblinking as she'd been waiting for his response. "Hey, I don't mean to sound rude, but you're starting to scare me with how focused your stare is right now."

"Right, sorry, I forget that not everyone likes when I do that." It was actually no one at all that liked her talent, but Nah still tried it out every once in a while anyway. "But cool, we can ride back home together and then you'll be able to get the guest room. If I'm being honest, going now before this place empties out even more might be a good idea, but it's up to you on that."

"Up to me? Aren't you the actual manakete here who's supposed to be doing things to mark your year or whatever?" Morgan seemed surprised that the ball was in his court, and he was more than happy to push it back onto Nah's shoulders. "You tell me when we're leaving and I'll be ready, this place isn't really interesting to me."

Nah turned to look around at everything that was going on in the room they were in. Tiki had moved on to talking to a different group of people that were gathered on the other side, a small child clinging to her leg as she spoke in her very slow and tired manner. Her parents were still bonking each other with their halves of the newspaper, acting as if they were much, much younger than they actually were. There were others in the room as well, but they were manaketes that Nah didn't particularly associate with, or didn't want to spend time and energy talking to. Not that they were bad people, they were just more similar to her mother than to her, and she already could barely connect with the kind of person her mother was. There was no way she was willingly going to pursue those sorts of interactions.

"I think I'm down to get out of here," Nah said after considering all options, knowing that there was very little that this letdown of a party had to offer that she couldn't just get taken care of at home. "Let's get going and maybe no one will even notice that we're leaving."

They were almost successful in getting out without any attention being pushed on them, but Nah made the mistake of stopping in the doorway on the way out and she could hear Tiki back in the room calling out her name. Naturally, she chose to ignore it and told Morgan to head down the hall toward the outer door, while she hustled to keep up with him, but before she could make it to the end she heard her name again. "Dinah. You aren't planning on leaving without giving proper farewells, are you?"

"I'm going to see you all again in, like, a few weeks. I think I can do without making some huge to-do about it all." Nah looked back over her shoulder, to see the crestfallen expression on the elder manakete's face. "Sorry, but that's never been my style, Lady Tiki. That's forever been something that you and Mom like doing, but not me."

"Perhaps you're beginning to stray further from the light than I expected. What a shame, you've always been a lovely girl to watch growing up, but I suppose it only makes sense, given the fact that you've turned your back on your heritage so many times already." With a sniffle, Tiki went back into the room, leaving Nah standing there knowing that she was being guilted into going back inside with her.

"Come on, Nah, it's starting to snow worse," she heard Morgan call, and she knew that her mind wasn't changing from what she'd already decided.

Under her breath, she muttered something about how manakete culture seemed to be a lot of stuffy old folks making rules they forced on the younger people, before she ran to catch up with Morgan and get outside into the near-blizzard conditions. She was thankful that they'd made the plan to go back to her house instead of try to travel to his, because even with her best attempt at driving carefully she was still a terrifying person to have in charge of driving in those conditions. There were plenty of moments where her car went skidding out through intersections that she shouldn't have been in, her and Morgan both screaming at the top of their lungs as it seemed their doom was upon them, but miraculously they made it to the house without any damage done to the car.

Although the damage done to them personally was another story, it seemed. "Okay, remind me to never, ever get in the car with you again, ever," Morgan panted once they were safely inside the entryway to the house Nah lived in, both taking off all shoes, hats, gloves, and jackets and tucking them into the closest closet. "I thought my dad was bad when he's in a rush to get somewhere, but I'd rather be riding with him when he's late to a business meeting than ever do whatever that was again."

"Not even the first time I've heard someone say that to me in the past year," Nah replied, not bothered by the lack of confidence in her driving because it was commonplace at that point. "But I get it, I could've handled driving that a lot better. Who would've ever guessed that going under the speed limit is recommended in the snow?"

"You're joking, right?"

Nah blinked at Morgan as she considered ignoring answering his question for the humor of it, but she chose to give him the peace of mind of knowing she was indeed joking. "I wasn't going that fast out there. Faster than I should have been? Yeah, definitely. But as fast as I would go normally? Not a chance."

"Aren't you scared of getting caught speeding around like that? I doubt you want to have to pay for a speeding ticket, or even have one on your record. Wouldn't that make you look bad for your job or something?" Morgan's question was a good one, and it was one that Nah would have loved to answer, but she was distracted by the sound of a timer going off somewhere in the house that she needed to go take care of.

The kitchen was where the culprit was located, the oven timer beeping that it had run its course, but she couldn't figure out why it was on in the first place. The oven was off, and there was nothing sitting idly inside of it, and there wasn't anything on the stovetop that would require timing as well. "I think Dad might've been making something earlier before he got dragged to the manakete 'party' and forgot to turn the timer off in his rush to finish up. I'm honestly surprised there isn't a random loaf of bread or a cake or something just sitting here getting stale."

"Does your dad spend a lot of time baking?" Morgan asked, eyes glancing around the spacious kitchen they were standing in. "I know he's made things for us in the past, but is that a normal thing for him?"

"When he's not working, it's normal. When he's got an actual job to do, not so much." Nah knew that she'd started a whole ordeal at the party by calling attention to it looking like her dad was searching for some freelance work to do, but she also knew that he truly wasn't going to be finding work in the wintertime. He was a freelance physical labor sort of man, and had been as long as she could remember, and it was completely typical for him to take time off every winter until spring weather rolled around and people needed a guy to step in and do some heavy lifting for them. "Which means that right now, it's more unusual that there isn't something here than anything."

"I see, I see." Morgan's reply made it very clear that he didn't see anything at all, and Nah was amused that he thought she wasn't going to pick up on that. "So since there's nothing in here, you want to make something instead?"

"W-what? Where did that come from?"

He shrugged, before turning around and jumping up onto one of the clean countertops, sitting himself down on it and kicking his feet into the cabinets below. "I've never really been over to a friend's house like this, only ever Owain's place and even then, he's not a friend so I don't think that counts."

"Well, for starters, you really shouldn't be sitting on countertops in other people's houses. We were literally just talking about all the baking my dad does, and now he's going to be baking somewhere that you were sitting." Nah scrunched her nose in Morgan's direction, but he didn't seem to care about what she was saying. "But, uh, I've honestly never been one for going to spend the night at other people's houses either, so I don't know what a sleepover's supposed to look like. Does this even count as a sleepover?"

"I'm sleeping over, so I think so?" Tilting his head back to lean it against the upper cabinets, Morgan sighed before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. "Would you look at that, a text from my mom asking if she needs to go back and get me. Do I tell her where I am or do I say I found somewhere to go? I don't want her driving more tonight."

A realization flashed through Nah's mind as she thought about how he should respond, one that involved his mother reaching out to her mother and that being the way that Nowi found out there was a boy in her house. "How about you say you're staying with a friend tonight and leave it at that? You don't have to tell her the details."

"She's going to ask for the details." Even still, Morgan did as directed and only mentioned that he had somewhere to stay, which brought a sense of relief to Nah until she remembered that her parents were going to come home at some point and they were going to find out that Morgan was there when they got back. While she began to mentally grapple with that, he got down from the countertop and motioned for her to stay where she was as he headed out of the room. "She wants to call and hear that I'm fine. Don't follow, got it?"

"Don't lie to her about what's going on! I don't want to be the bad guy in all of this, I've got to go to your house on Tuesday!" Nah was fine with needing to stay in the kitchen, and took the moment to wipe down the counter in the general area that Morgan had been, cleaning it with soap and water until she was sure it was now back to being free of his germs. Out in the living room, she could hear him talking with his mother, awkwardly laughing at things she was saying and assuring her over and over that he was sleeping somewhere safe that night.

When he came back, he looked like the conversation had exhausted him in many ways, something that Nah almost pointed out until she was instead using her breath to keep him from getting back up on the counter. After explaining that she'd cleaned it and that she'd really like it if he didn't sit there again, he chose to lean against it instead. "So that was an interesting talk she wanted to have. Apparently the police got involved with the fight she was having and that's why she had to go home."

"The…police," Nah repeated, blinking a few times as she waited for Morgan to say he was joking. But when he stayed silent and nodded, she felt like she was being tricked even more than before. "Because a middle-aged woman decided she needed to throw hands with someone at a party for manaketes?"

"More like, because she decided she needed to get in an argument with someone who legally has to stay away from our family and called for backup to enforce the law." Morgan was beginning to fiddle with his phone in both hands, passing it back and forth without looking at it, as his eyes were fixated firmly on Nah's unamused face. "You've heard about my not-actual aunt Aversa before, right?"

"From my mom, yeah. Apparently she's a bad person that's got a bad reputation in manakete circles, but that's all I've ever gotten." Nah didn't know how else to answer that, beyond admitting that she'd heard far more about the woman from her mother than she'd ever thought she'd need to know. Nowi was exceptionally good at weaseling her way into friendships with people much younger than her (as was the case with Morgan's mother) and getting them to spill all of their dirty secrets and things they'd rather have taken to their grave. "I'm sure she's not even worth the breath you'd need to use to tell me about what she's done to deserve this treatment."

"You're right about that, Nah," Morgan said with a laugh, firmly catching his phone in one hand before tucking it into his pocket. "She's not worth anything at all, not even the energy to think about what kind of person she is." That was when he froze, before looking around in a rather frantic, skittish manner. "You don't think she's got this place bugged and that she's listening to our every word, do you?"

"What kind of conspiracy theory nonsense is that? I've never met her in my life, I highly doubt she's got this place 'bugged' in any sort of way." Nah looked out the large window just outside the kitchen, where the snow was coming down just as hard as it had been when they'd gotten there. "And I'm willing to bet all my money on her not being outside spying on you, so don't you worry about a thing."

Giving a relieved sigh, Morgan explained, "Sorry to jump to that conclusion, but I've always been taught to be on edge whenever she's around. I guess, when I was just a baby, she tried to do some stuff to me and Lucina and ever since then, she's been completely unwelcome in the family. I don't remember any of it, but Lucy might?"

"Of course, because I'm going to sit here and call your busy sister to ask her if she can spare a moment on this Saturday night to recall a traumatic childhood event." The way Nah said it, she'd tried to make it clear that she was being sarcastic, but the fact that Morgan was abysmal at picking up those social cues had slipped her mind and she was left having to tell him that she didn't actually mean that she'd do that. "Look, you're getting super invested in getting me caught up with your family drama, and I'm sorry but it's not something I actually want any part of. I wouldn't rope you into my family's stuff."

"But your family doesn't have anything interesting like that. You've got a mom who doesn't work and a dad who only works when the weather's good, you don't have sisters or aunts or anything like me." Morgan looked at Nah, expecting her to admit that he was right, but instead he was left watching her walk out of the kitchen to get closer to the snowy scene in the window. "Where are you going? Why are you walking away like this?"

"Because I'm not interested in comparing traumas, that's all. I've spent enough time having to do that with everyone else, I'm not doing it with you too." As Nah approached the window, she found herself wishing she hadn't been so kind as to offer her friend a place to stay overnight, because he was getting on her nerves. She was always the sensible one, unless a very specific set of events was taking place around her, and she hated when people didn't respect that aspect of who she was.

After gesturing wildly as he tried to collect his thoughts, Morgan followed her over to the window and stood behind her, resting his arms down on the top of Nah's head. "I didn't mean for it to seem like that's what I wanted, I hope you know. I get that you don't have much of that stuff in your life anyway."

"You're still not helping matters."

"I'll stop talking, then."

The silence brought on by that agreement lasted exactly fifteen seconds, before the front door to the house came open and Nowi's voice rang through the home, her calling for wherever Nah was. "You're in so much trouble with Lady Tiki next time you see her!" Nowi continued, seemingly oblivious to where her daughter was at the moment. "She was pretty upset about you leaving like you did, and honestly? Can't say I blame her."

"Those roads are not for driving on, even by those with all our experience," Gregor followed up, as he shut the front door behind them. "You should have let us do the driving to get you back safe, especially since—uh?" Whatever reason he had to offer was cut short with a surprised sputter. "Why is there a blue-haired one in our home?"

"There's a what?" Nowi repeated, before she seemed to catch a glimpse of the back of Morgan's head for herself and she screeched, "You do not belong in this house, sir! What in Naga's name are you doing here?"

"I, uh, I was invited by, um, you know, your daughter?" Morgan managed to spit out, as he turned around to face the two overbearing and protective parents who were quickly coming toward him. Nah, realizing that she'd just been implicated in things, tried her best to remain invisible by hiding behind Morgan, but when he unexpectedly stepped to the side she was all too visible to hide any longer. "My mom left me at the party and she offered me a place to stay tonight, I promise I didn't invite myself!"

Nowi's eyes narrowed as she gave Morgan a menacing stare, before shifting her gaze toward Nah. "And what do you have to say about that, Dinah? Did you think you could get away with sneaking a boy in here?"

"No, actually, I didn't think that at all, because he's seriously only here because the roads are atrocious. Wasn't Dad literally just saying that I should have let you two do the driving? Would you have rather me having driven all the way over to Morgan's place to get him home, then drive all the way back here, and by myself?" Nah was fully prepared to stand her ground as needed, but at the same time she knew that her mother wasn't going to argue with the facts she'd just thrown down. It would have been beyond bizarre if Nowi didn't see the truth for what it was.

Except, as it turned out, she could accept that Nah had invited Morgan over because of the weather, but she couldn't accept him staying there. "Nope, sorry, but he's got to go. You're not keeping a boy in this house, not unless you've got something you need to tell me about your relationship with him."

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Y-yeah, she's not my girlfriend!" Morgan chimed in, knowing that speaking his own defense wasn't going to do him much good but that he needed to do as much as he could to help Nah out. "First of all, she's not really my type—sorry, Nah, but you knew that. Second, if I was dating her then I'd probably have some…other guys wanting to put me in my place over it."

"Other guys are interested in my daughter?" Nowi's eyes opened back to their normal wideness as she looked at Morgan, waiting for him to elaborate further. "Wait, how do you know that, exactly? I need to know if you're just saying it to save yourself, or if you're really meaning to get my hopes up for the future."

As Nah groaned over what she was hearing, Morgan came forward and nodded slowly. "Right, uh, I know this because we talk about it a lot after our game sessions on Tuesdays, after Nah leaves. Sorry that this is how you're finding this out, by the way, but it's true. Me and Brady and Owain and anyone else who happens to stick around for the afterparty get to talking, and those guys…man, they sure do love talking about you."

Jaw dropping, Nowi glanced to her daughter to see what sort of similar reaction Nah was having, but when she was met with a completely blank, neutral stare, she instead spun around to face her husband instead. "Are you hearing this, Gregor? I think this kid just gave you some names of some people you need to investigate."

"Mom, you guys know them already. They've come over here before a bunch of times. Are you starting to go as senile as Lady Tiki, or are you just pretending to forget these things?" Nah waggled a finger at her mother, who wasn't looking in the correct direction to see it, and as soon as it seemed Nowi was about to turn around, the finger came down. "They're the same guys you've known since we were all kids."

"Huh, you mean there aren't a bunch of people with those names hanging around town? I guess we have known them a long time." Nowi raised a hand to stroke her chin thoughtfully, which she did in an overdramatic way simply to irritate Nah. "I take back you needing to investigate them, Gregor, because I'll do it myself. I've got ways."

"I don't like the idea of you investigating my friends, but…if it gets you off Morgan's back while he stays here tonight, then I'll let them be subjected to this nonsense. Can't even say it's the worst thing they'll have put up with because of me." Nah paused, before leaning forward to get serious with her parents. "That does mean that you're letting him stay here and not harassing him further, right?"

"That would seem fair, yes," Gregor said with a nod, while Nowi didn't seem as eager to accept the terms of the deal. "Nowi, please, allow this to happen. After all, the snow is bad and none of us should be out in it. Not even Gregor here wants to meet death in the snow!"

"Fine, the boy stays for one night only." Crinkling her face as she playfully gestured in her daughter's direction, Nowi turned serious for a moment as she added, "But he gets the couch down here, and doesn't come anywhere close to your bedroom! It might be the start of the year of the dragon but you're not doing anything life-changing today and that's an order."

Nah groaned as Morgan, completely clueless as to what that referred to, looked at her for an explanation. "By 'life-changing,' does she mean going out in the snow or what? I thought we just decided I get to stay."

"Mom, Dad, go to bed so I can apparently teach Morgan about the wonders of life before heading to bed myself," Nah grumbled, her annoyance far more prevalent than she would have liked for it to come off as she was merely trying to joke around. She did get a laugh out of her mother, and her father seemed relieved to hear her cracking any sort of joke in that moment, and they were soon on their way upstairs into their bedroom. Once she heard a door close upstairs, she turned to Morgan and let her shoulders drop. "You seriously don't get what my mom was referring to?"

"I didn't at first, but then you mentioned wonders of life and I think I get it. Maybe." He awkwardly smiled at her, only for her to turn back to looking at the still-falling snow outside. "Your mom doesn't really think that we'd be doing that sort of thing, even after all the talking I did about other guys being interested in you and stuff like that?"

"She wasn't being serious when she said that, I don't think. She's always been really weird about the idea of her little girl going off and finding someone who loves her, but maybe that's because she didn't find love until she was in her thirties." Pressing her forehead against the cold glass, Nah felt the chill of the snow on the other side and almost wished she was out in it after all. "It's just a huge thing for manaketes to mate for life, and she doesn't want me rushing into anything until I'm ready for it."

Morgan came to stand beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder after brushing one of her reddish braids to the side. "Okay, but she didn't need to think that I'm here to get you wrapped up in those kinds of things. I'm not, I'm only here because of this weather, you know that I wouldn't do anything like that."

"Of course I know that, if I didn't know that I wouldn't have invited you over." A pause, followed by Nah tacking on, "Plus, you're too busy coming up with things to throw at us during the next session to even think about anything romantic. I can't believe Mom even knows you're the one running the game and she thinks you're here to get in my bed with me. You've got bigger things to worry about."

"Well, duh? Everyone else we play with is in fact much bigger than you." Cue Nah reaching up and pulling Morgan's hand off of her, while he laughed about her reaction to the joke about her height. "Sorry, that was kind of mean of me to say, even if it was true. But I do have bigger things to worry about, like if this is all gonna be cleared up before Tuesday or if I'm going to need to take a crash course in running sessions online."

"I mean, it wouldn't hurt to be prepared in case the roads aren't better by then, but you know how things get around here. They're either super on top of clearing the roads and it's safe within a day, or you're trapped for a week. Not much in between." Her eyes watching the heavy snowflakes falling down on the piles that had already built up, Nah found herself hoping for the latter option, even though she knew the former was the correct choice. "I'm sure you'll be home tomorrow safe and sound, and we'll all be over at your parents' house on Tuesday like normal. Like nothing ever happened."

Nodding solemnly, Morgan stepped away from where she was standing, before he jumped out of nowhere and ran toward one of the couches in the main room. "Nothing's going to even have the chance to happen because I think I'm going to go lay down. You don't mind turning all the lights off and heading upstairs now, do you?"

Nah stepped back from the window and turned around right as Morgan leapt onto the couch of his choosing, the force sending one of the recliners thrusting out and creaking underneath him. After rushing over to make sure that the couch was okay—not even concerned with Morgan's well-being on that moment—she said, "I'll head on up and make sure my parents see that I'm up there by myself. So, uh, just a warning in case they come down to make sure you're really down here doing your own thing."

"Warning noted. Thanks for helping me out tonight, Nah."

"It's what friends are for." She smiled at him before going around and turning off every conceivable light in the lower part of the house, the last one being the light that illuminated the stairs she climbed to get to where her bedroom was. On the upper landing, she could hear Morgan down on his phone, calling who she could assume was one of his parents to check in with them, and she shook her head at how strange the night had turned.

Before she went into her bedroom, she knocked on the door to her parents' room, which she could tell they were both awake on the other side given the fact that she could hear their voices talking in not-so-hushed whispers. "Oh, it's you," Nowi remarked when she opened the door, her hair done up in a twisted towel to dry. "You've made good on the agreement, haven't you? No boys up here?"

"No boys up here," Nah repeated with a nod. "Just like we agreed. You have a good night, I'm going to my room and staying there until sunrise. This has just been…one of the days of all time, that's for sure."

"You're a good kid, Dinah, don't forget that." Reaching out and gently tapping Nah on the nose, Nowi's whole face lit up at the display before she retreated into the room, closing the door before there could be any retaliation. Nah's hand came up and touched exactly where her mother had just touched her, smiling softly at the whole display of affection.

They weren't a traditional family, and her parents often got on her nerves, but at the end of the day, Nah was thankful for what she'd been given in life and she couldn't have asked for anything different. Well, except for the snow and the driving and the being teased about bringing a boy into her parents' home, but that was normal for her life and she wasn't about to expect anything else from it.

Nah's work schedule had been a thing of beauty ever since the beginning of the current school year. She'd been hoping that someday her degree and all of the effort she'd put into finishing college in a timely manner would pay off, and it did. The payoff, almost immediate after her graduation, came in the form of four different jobs on four different days of the week, all under the same title and job description.

The school district she'd gotten hired in had been insistent that she focus on a different school every day (with Fridays as a day spent for appointments and weekday-necessary activities because she couldn't take off any other day unless it was a life or death situation). At first she'd been apprehensive about taking on such a schedule, but after going to trainings at each one it had dawned on her that doing things the way they wanted would work better than just being stationed at one school. However, when she'd gotten to see which school she was at on which day of the week that she'd realized just how interesting her schedule actually was. The reason for that boiled down to one particular student that attended the particular school that she was working at on Tuesdays, the same day as her weekly gaming session with Morgan and some other friends.

At first, at that Tuesday school assignment, she'd made it a point to stick to her actual role of assisting the younger students per what her education level had deemed appropriate. But curiosity had gotten to Nah around the fall break in classes, and she'd ended up taking a stroll through the upper grade hallways just to see what kinds of students she could find roaming around there. It took quite a while before she made her pass on a day where the students could actually see her, but when that finally happened one early winter day, she'd immediately been made to regret ever making that decision in the first place.

That was because of one Ribbon Leichtfoot, middle child of the last taguel family and overall gremlin of a girl, spotting her and trying to get her attention. Nah didn't think too much of the prolonged eye contact she'd made with Ribbon that day, and figured that it could just lead to running into her more frequently in the halls; what she got out of it was a request from Nowi to make arrangements that would use her location on Tuesdays to benefit multiple people. "It's one day a week and the girl gets to spend time with someone outside of family or friends, how bad can it be?" Nowi said over dinner, a question that made Nah inwardly groan because she knew that it could only be bad.

And now that it was once again Tuesday, and she was once again at Ribbon's school, Nah had to once again face the reality that she had a job on top of the job she was actually there to do. She liked her actual job, working with the kids who were barely old enough to be able to explain their actions who were struggling academically, but the additional job she'd been thrust into because of her going through the hallways when she shouldn't have was a lot less likeable. In fact, it was so unlikeable that she'd thought many times of begging her mother to reach out and put a stop to it, because there was no way she was going to do it herself.

"Nah! Why are you down on this side of the school?" Ribbon's voice called out, the girl cupping her mouth to yell down the hallway despite classes going on around her. "Last time I checked, you're supposed to be with the littles, not us big kids."

"For the last time, Ribbon, if I am in this place for work purposes, you are to call me Miss Balakin," Nah replied, after hushing the girl and checking their surroundings to make sure no one else was listening in. She motioned toward her name badge, which had originally said her full, legal name on it, but she'd covered the first two letters in Dinah with a sticker and had covered her last name with a slightly transparent sticker to obscure it as much as she could get away with. "Seriously, I get that you know me outside of here, but I'm professional when I'm in this place and you've got to treat me like I am."

"Right, okay." Dropping her hands to her hips, Ribbon stood menacingly from where she was further down the hall, her shoulders hunched forward slightly but her still standing taller than Nah did. "Still doesn't explain why you're down here in the first place."

"I'm walking to the student services office, that's why I'm down here. Still not the way you should be speaking to someone who works at the school, but you're getting better about it." It wasn't true at all, there was nothing "better" about how Ribbon interacted with Nah on the days she was there at her school, but Nah wasn't about to get involved in any sort of drama that would drag Ribbon's mother into the equation. She knew it was best to let the girl do as she wanted, and let someone else handle it. "Why are you out of class right now, anyway? Shouldn't you be, well, learning something?"

"I needed a drink of water." Ribbon took a single, giant step closer to where Nah was, which was in the general direction of the closest water fountain. "I forgot my water bottle at home and I was thirsty. Is there a problem with that? You want to—"

Nah cut her off with a shush. "You get your drink of water, then, and stop speaking to me like we're personal friends. I get that I'm kind of your babysitter on Tuesdays, but you've really got to get out of the habit of talking to me like we've been friends all our lives."

"—sorry about that, I'll get my water." Now that she'd been put in her place as well as she could be, given the circumstances, Ribbon kept walking down the hall with her head hanging low, her hair obscuring her face as she came closer and closer. Nah stood there and watched her until she made it to the water fountain, at which point she decided she'd get back to what she should've been doing and left the girl to her own devices.

This was, unfortunately, a rather common occurrence every week, because despite being told how to act multiple times, Ribbon was convinced that she could get away with being much more casual with Nah than what was appropriate. On the flip side, Nah appreciated that there was someone in that building, or even in the entire school district, that would refer to her with the name she preferred, but she knew that allowing Ribbon to get away with the first-name basis would introduce a lot of questions from the school administration. It was already a problem when the tiniest students were calling her Miss Dinah instead of Miss Balakin, and that was already a huge concession that Nah had needed to make to be more approachable by those students. She could only imagine the sorts of issues they'd take with a single student calling her a nickname instead.

She was just about at the student services office when she heard footsteps behind her, followed with a laugh that she immediately recognized as Ribbon's. "You need to go to class, Ribbon," she reminded, not turning around to give the girl the satisfaction of getting the attention she wanted. "I can go pop into your classroom and let your teacher know that you're out here following me around."

"I was just wondering," Ribbon started, a quietness to her voice, "if you were still taking me home today after school. Dad said that he's going to be home late and…I know what you do on Tuesdays after you drop me off. You can't miss that."

A chill shot down Nah's spine as she slowly, deliberately turned around until she was staring slightly up at the much-younger girl who'd been behind her. "When was anyone going to tell me that your father isn't going to be home on time? I assume this means your mother isn't going to be there either?"

"She's been out of town since before the snow started falling this past weekend, something about visiting old family homes or something like that? I don't know." Ribbon half-shrugged, before stepping back a bit. "I can try and see if I can call Dad to see if he'll be home but I don't know if that'll do anything…"

"Just go to class, I'll be the one to figure something out here. As the adult in the situation, it's basically my job to do that." Mentally cursing out the person responsible for this scheduling conflict (which wasn't either of Ribbon's parents, even though they certainly could've done better at letting her know what was going on with their schedules), Nah waved for Ribbon to finally walk back to where she belonged. Once Ribbon was back in her classroom, that was when Nah was able to finish getting into the office she used on the days she was at the school and take a seat at her desk, thinking about how to solve the new problem at hand.

She couldn't fault the girl for letting her know that plans had changed when she did, although some warning ahead of time would've been appreciated. Life was pretty fluid and hectic, and Nah fully understood that people could have unpredictable schedules that would leave her in charge of a twelve-year-old girl on the night she was supposed to be going to her friend's house to play some tabletop games. It wasn't going to be too much of a problem if Ribbon was there—she wasn't some stranger to the people that were playing alongside Nah, so they'd be accepting of her presence. The problem came in the fact that Morgan's house was so far away from everyone and everything else, and if Nah got called to take Ribbon home mid-session, it would ultimately eat up all of their time.

Therefore, there was one option and one option only that seemed to make sense, and so Nah sent her mother a message begging her to step in and watch Ribbon that night, because her plans were too important to be derailed by the girl. Nowi's response came almost immediately, and the two letters that it contained caused Nah's blood to start boiling a little. "How dare she turn me down like this?" Nah seethed, tapping on the phone keyboard but not knowing what she was going to say in return. "She's the whole reason I'm stuck with Ribbon tonight in the first place, the least she could do is help out when I need it!"'

She didn't send any other messages to her mother, choosing to take the high road and not be seen as a disrespectful daughter because of the situation. Instead, she ended up telling Morgan that there'd be a guest coming along with her, and that she was sorry if she caused everything to be disrupted or pushed to the next week. He wasn't nearly as quick to respond as Nowi had been, to the point that Nah wasn't sure if her message was even going through, but just before the end of the school day she got a response in the form of a thumbs-up emoji followed by a grinning one, which she took to mean as complete understanding.

She was beyond wrong on that, but she didn't find that out until her and Ribbon were standing outside the lovely house that Morgan shared with his parents, both of them with teeth chattering due to the cold wind that had picked up on their drive over. "Th-this is miserable!" Ribbon called out, her arms rapidly flapping around to try and generate heat. "Why'd y-y-you have to br-bring us here?"

"It's for a game night," Nah replied, her breath warm on her face and only causing her cheeks to grow even colder as they continued to wait. "I come here every week to play games with my friends."

"D-d-does that mean that Yarne's going to be here?" Despite feeling so cold, there was a warmness to the question that Ribbon asked, and Nah felt genuinely bad having to tell the girl that no, her brother was not going to be there. "Man, that would've been cool. So I guess this has got to be a really scary game. Or, or, or…maybe it's a violent one? He doesn't like violent things."

"Trust me, I know that about him already, but that's not the reason he's not here even if it makes sense for it to be." Honestly, Nah couldn't remember the exact reason that Yarne had turned down the invitation to be a part of the gaming group, but it had something to do with it starting not long after he'd gotten his new position at his job and he hadn't wanted to try and juggle a game alongside everything else on his plate. "Maybe someday we'll get him included in a similar game, I don't know."

Ribbon opened her mouth to say something more, but the door opened at the same time and Morgan, bundled up nice and warm inside, tilted his head at the presence of the two standing there outside. "Is this the guest you were telling me about?" he asked, pointing toward Ribbon. "I thought you were talking about—"

"My brother?" Ribbon helpfully suggested, even though it had just been established that he wasn't a part of things.

"—I mean, sure, it could've been him. I thought more like maybe a coworker, or someone you know from the manakete stuff, but…" Morgan raised his eyebrows at Nah, who shrugged out of an uncertainty of how to explain what was going on. "I guess I'll come up with something for her to do while we're playing, since there's no way I'm letting an actual child get in on the game."

"Look, if it's a problem for her to be here, I'll take her home. The problem with that is that she has no idea where her dad is and her mom's unavailable, so she's kind of stuck with me until she's got a parent to watch her." Without waiting for an invitation to come inside, Nah pushed past Morgan and entered the house, feeling the relief of the warm inside air as soon as she was fully surrounded by it.

The first thing she noticed upon entering was that she wasn't the first person to get there, as there were a couple of others sitting over at the big dining room table, in the middle of a conversation that involved calling someone's character a waste of space. She stood there listening to them for a few moments, until she had a freezing cold hand placed on top of her head and a shrill, young girl voice in her ear. "I don't think your friend wants me here," Ribbon bluntly said, which Nah wasn't going to argue with.

"Uh, does someone want to explain why she's here?" one of the men at the table asked, being pulled out of his friendly conversation to look directly over at Ribbon, before his eyes fell on Nah instead and pinned her as the culprit. "Of course it'd be somethin' to do with you, wouldn't it?"

"You've got me there, I'm always just getting myself wrapped up in everyone else's problems," Nah replied, trying to push Ribbon off of her but failing at the act. "Mom arranged for me to take her home on the days I'm at her school, but today it turned into an actual babysitting gig."

Scoffing at the statement, Ribbon retorted, "I am not a baby to be babysat, thank you very much. I'm barely even a kid at this point. And, oh, I'm taller than you too!"

"Congrats, you've achieved something that most people are also successful at, would you like your prize now or later?" Having her height mentioned wasn't a big problem for Nah, given that she was incredibly short when compared to just about everyone she spent time with, but when it was being thrown at her by someone half her age, it rubbed her the wrong way. Her response certainly could have been worded nicer, but it did its job as it got Ribbon to back off and mutter an apology before bounding off into the heart of the house.

"So are you getting paid for watching her like this, or is it out of the kindness you clearly want to share with everyone?" Morgan asked, looking for some clarification on why there was a child in his family's house. "If it were me, and my parents asked me to do something like that, I'd want money out of things."

Nah rolled her eyes, taking her shoes and jacket off before heading to the table, sitting down next to the taller of the men who were already there. "If there's money involved in this, it's not coming to me. Like I said, Mom arranged for all of this to happen, she's the point of contact that Ribbon's parents go through. I just do the work."

"That's unfortunate. You really should look into speaking sense into everyone involved, it seems like they could use it." The man she hadn't sat next to was looking at Nah with a big smile, his head nodding as he continued, "I'm sure if we went through the list of spells, we could find something that could assist you on that quest to get what you deserve. I cannot be the one to cast the spell, naturally, but I can at least try finding it."

"I'm absolutely surprised you didn't open your mouth to tell me about how you're going to go chase my mother down with a sword, so…thanks for that, Owain." Nah was holding back a laugh, trying to resist poking more fun at the most eccentric person currently in the room. "I'll be fine without someone's spell trying to motivate me, I'm sure. Usually taking Ribbon home isn't even a problem, it's just…today."

"If it's any consolation, Laurent's going to be late today and Noire isn't even planning on showing up because of her own family drama," Morgan told her as he took his spot at the head of the table, where he had a screen set up to block everyone from seeing what sorts of things he had set up in front of him. "So there's a very, very real chance we could be doing this with just the three of you."

Ribbon popped up from behind the wall separating the dining room from the kitchen, a curious look on her face. "Can I play with you guys? I promise I'm good at following directions, if you explain them to me."

"I'm not having a child in this campaign."

"If that's the case, then why're you letting Nah play such a young elf? Technically her character isn't an adult, so…" Owain shrugged, while Morgan gave him a very narrow-eyed look. "Sorry, just reminding you of that fun fact."

"Let me rephrase it, then." Morgan took in a deep breath, before pointing over his screen at Nah. "She's an adult player playing a young character. Ribbon is an actual child who would be playing far over her head. Is that what you want to see happen?"

Owain took a second to think that over before sighing. "I suppose not. As interesting as it would be to watch a comrade fall in battle, I feel it wouldn't be appropriate for said comrade to be controlled by someone so inexperienced."

"Ugh, this is so stupid, it's always adults getting to do adult things and me being left out," Ribbon pouted, before disappearing back on the other side of the kitchen wall, her silence going forward more suspicious than it really should have been.

But, as long as she was keeping herself mostly out of trouble, there wasn't much that Nah could ask for from her, other than having some supernatural ability to prevent herself from being called to go home right when things got started. These Tuesday night plans were one of the things Nah looked forward to every single week, being able to get weird with some of her best and closest friends at the request of someone that she hadn't ever seen herself becoming close with until he had the idea to give them this space. She enjoyed being able to let down her façade of normalness and seriousness around the people she trusted, and to get to spend a few hours each week playing as an otherworldly creature was so far out of her normal that it felt great, honestly.

In fact, it was so great that she didn't care that the guy sitting next to her had somehow backed into playing as the complete antithesis to what the manaketes believed a dragon was supposed to be like. When they'd been crafting their characters the September before, someone in the group doing that had started as a joke, because no one wanted to step on the toes of Nah's culture if they could avoid it. Even Morgan had said that, despite "dragons" being firmly in the title of the game, he wasn't going to include killing any for her sake, and for the sake of his family who could very much overhear them playing if they were home. She hadn't asked for that, even if that possibility did sit in her mind as one she didn't want to have to deal with, so hearing it had been a nice surprise and a welcome change to the game.

This was followed immediately by Owain declaring that he was going to have his character be a gnome with a giant sword, in order to make sure that Nah's character wasn't the smallest in the party. That suggestion didn't go over quite as well as the removing most dragons one, because she took it as a negative comment on her height and she wasn't going to let that be something she tolerated every week. It took a lot of pointing out reasons why he was being a bit offensive to get him to change his mind, and so Owain had to start the journey of figuring out a better race for his character, and he scoured the books looking for the perfect suggestion.

Laurent, who had previously built his character the moment he'd been approached by Morgan about putting the whole game together, sat next to Owain trying his hardest not to break his neutral expression, because he'd done the work to be as considerate as possible in what kind of cultures playing as a tabaxi could represent. On his other side, Noire was still tinkering with what class she wanted her character to be, but she'd fully settled on making them into a tiefling, which didn't have the baggage of representing cultures in Ylisse to contend with. This news came at the exact same moment that Owain had stumbled upon the tiefling for himself, and despite being told repeatedly by Morgan that it was okay if they doubled up on races, he resigned himself to letting Noire have the cooler race and took playing as a boring human as his final decision.

And then there was Brady, who had only gotten involved because every other person Morgan had wanted in the group had either turned down the invitation, or was going through enough in their personal life that it wasn't feasible to even consider them being there. Brady, who'd heard that both Owain and Nah were going to be there and decided he'd needed to be a part of things to keep them from targeting each other with friendly fire, and once he knew about Noire's inclusion that became even more necessary.

Brady, who took one look at the possible character races, glanced at Nah, and asked in his rough voice if he could play as a dragon, just to do justice to "someone that he respected."

Morgan's initial reaction was to tell him no, but Nah, being the one that had more manakete lineage to her name than the person in charge, held up her hand and said that she trusted that if anyone was going to represent dragons right in the game, it was going to be Brady, so she didn't have a problem with the decision. At the time, it felt like a good choice, but when his stat rolls were pitifully low almost entirely, it became a really bad choice because the dragon man could hit things hard, but was about as brilliant as a piece of wood with the personality to match. Yet, despite all of that, Nah didn't mind having to hear him bumbling through the campaign next to her and her stately elf character, because he was having fun with it and he was always checking with her that his decisions weren't seen as offensive.

If nothing else, they were having a good time interacting with each other and following the plot of whatever it was that Morgan was trying to achieve with his story, so it felt okay that perhaps there was a bit of misrepresenting what dragons were like. They weren't even similar to manaketes in any way beyond both being labeled as dragons, so when things got weird (and they did frequently), and Brady was stuck sitting there trying to make the most out of the bad situation, Nah could find humor in the whole thing instead of the sense of being made fun of. That was, in all honesty, the reason she'd been fine with Brady picking a dragon-person to begin with—because she knew that he was going to do it as well as possible just to make her happy.

It was right around the typical session starting time that night that Nah's phone went off, her mother messaging her asking her where she was, and more importantly, where Ribbon was. "You've got to be kidding me," she grumbled as she excused herself from the table to go make a call in return. Nowi answered on the first ring, and was met with Nah's answer: "I'm down at Morgan's place, exact same place I am every single Tuesday night. You're not about to tell me that I'm supposed to take Ribbon home right now, are you?"

"I mean…her father is pretty worried about her, since she isn't home and he wasn't told where she was going."

"Mom, seriously? He wasn't home when she got done with school, was I supposed to drop her off at her front door and wish her the best?" Closing her eyes, Nah took in a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, trying not to let her irritation come through too much. "I'm a staff member at multiple schools, all of which have rules about child endangerment and how I'm supposed to handle knowing a child is in danger."

As if she'd been summoned, Ribbon herself popped into the room, looking at Nah with wide eyes. "I'm in danger?" she asked, repeating the last few words and figuring it had to be about her. "I didn't realize that."

"Shush, you, you're ruining my plans tonight even more than you already have." Silencing the girl with the rather harsh statement, Nah knew she didn't have the time to start feeling bad about doing such a thing when Nowi was on the other end of the phone call. "Mom, you've got to tell him that he's either got to come get her himself, or you're doing it. I am not sacrificing a night with my friends over something you volunteered me for."

"Last I checked, I wasn't the one who took a child that isn't their own out for a night with friends. You might want to rethink what you think is possible here, or else—oh, that's the doorbell, got to go!" Just like that, Nowi ended the call, leaving Nah standing there muttering under her breath while Ribbon stared at her, her eyes just as wide as they'd been before.

"Am I in trouble, Nah?" the girl asked, a scared tone prevalent in her voice. "I don't want to be in trouble with you, or with anyone…"

Taking a second deep breath, Nah shook her head as she headed for the doorway, knowing that her hands were tied on what she was going to have to do. "Nope, you're not in trouble because you didn't do anything wrong. I'm going to be taking you home now, though."

"But your game and your friends, don't you want to stay around for that?" Ribbon tilted her head slightly to the side as she continued to stare at Nah. "I know that if you were Yarne, and he was here with all of his friends, he'd choose them over getting me home. Aren't you going to do the same?"

Nah knew without a doubt that Ribbon was completely, utterly wrong about that statement, and that she'd somehow inflated her brother's courage and ability to stand up to others in her mind, but she wasn't about to correct that. "If I did the same, I could lose my job over being accused of kidnapping you, even if it'd be far from the case. I have to take you home to your dad before he gets too worried about where you are. Let's go."

Even as Nah was leaving, Ribbon stayed right where she was, her face twisting and contorting as she thought about what she'd just heard. "But I don't want to go. I want to stay here, I want to know about your game and what you're doing and all the fun adult stuff that I never get to know about."

"There isn't anything fun and adult about what happens here on Tuesdays. Now seriously, get your feet heading this way because I'm not about to learn what it's like to be arrested over you wanting to act more grown up." Her patience beginning to wear thin, Nah motioned for Ribbon to follow her again and again until the girl relented, dragging her feet across the floor rather than walking properly. When they got back to the table and the gathered players, Nah told Ribbon to go get her shoes and jacket on, before turning to everyone else and saying, "Sorry to bail out on you guys, but my apparent other job calls and I can't stick around tonight."

"Seriously, someone else can't come get her and take her home?" Morgan asked, annoyed as he watched Nah roll her eyes and shake her head. "That's so dumb. Sorry that this happened to you, we're gonna miss having you around tonight."

"I'm going to miss being around tonight, that's for sure. I was looking forward to getting to see how Farona handles taking on this new dungeon, but I guess we'll be waiting a week for that, now won't we?"

"I guess so." The dejected tone Morgan spoke with was plenty disappointing to hear, but he was able to follow it up with, "Or maybe not?" when he checked his phone moments later. "You won't be devastated if we run this without you, will you?"

Confused, Nah replied, "I mean, I won't be, but you're not considering running it with two players, are you? That'd be insane, not to mention completely stupid."

"Laurent's just about here, if he's around they should be fine." Morgan looked from his phone to Owain and Brady, then back to his phone. "Emphasis on should, I guess. Provided that the dragon actually manages to do something other than miss all his hits."

"Look, I'm over here tryin' my best, I can't help that the dice you let me use were clearly weighted to completely screw me over," Brady grumbled, before standing up from the table and approaching Nah. "Sorry that you're gonna be missin' everything, but I'll keep you updated, if you'd like?"

Nah shook her head. "Don't worry about it, I'll get a recap next session. Focus on good rolls and hitting things."

"Should've known you'd say somethin' like that," he said, before giving her a quick, very small hand-clasp on her shoulder, him shuffling back to his chair before she had a chance to react to the touch. "Drive safe, we'll miss you."

"He speaks for us all when he says that," Owain chimed in, giving a small salute-like wave as he spoke. "Personally I would wish you a fond farewell, but he feels that's a bit too overdramatic. Maybe even a bit too personal? Not quite sure."

"Yeah, okay, leaving now." Nah at least let Owain finish that thought before she was heading to the door, getting her things on and leaving with Ribbon following right behind her. She hated that this was how the night was turning out for her, but she wasn't going to take it out on the girl she was carting around in her back seat, even if it was easy to do just that.

It was even easier when Ribbon opened her mouth and said, "I think the tall, dark guy has a thing for you, Nah. Did you see the way he put his hand on you? It was almost as awkward as watching my brother try and be romantic. Just with a lot less…crying."

Rather than answer, Nah tried to think about how she'd felt when she'd been touched by Brady's hand, and she couldn't say at all that she felt any sort of sparks or romance from the gesture. It had just been a friendly little deal, and of course a twelve-year-old would see that and run with it as if it was straight out of some fairy tale love story. Even still, Nah's mind began to shift to the what-ifs, to the possibility that maybe Ribbon was seeing something that was truly there after all…

The fact that, despite being told he didn't need to do it, Brady sent a long recap of what happened in the night's session after it had finished was only a bit more evidence in favor of the girl's overactive imagination. By that point, Nah had come to terms with what had happened and how she'd been ripped away from what she'd wanted to do, and to get that little reminder that she'd been missed felt good. Seeing who it had come from felt a little better. And reading the follow-up message that her character would've been so useful in the combat encounters made her pride soar.

This was met almost immediately with the realization that Nah couldn't do a thing about this without making something uncomfortable to handle, and she groaned at that, setting her phone aside and throwing a pillow over her face. "The first time in my life I get proof that a guy's into me, and it's over a tabletop game," she muttered, feeling like her whole world had just been turned into a joke. "I don't even know what to do about this."

One thing was for sure, she wasn't going to be acting on it when that was the only evidence she had. She didn't need to get an entire game's worth of people angry at her for ruining things, and she certainly didn't need her parents down her throat over a second guy within a week's time.

A/N: "didn't you just...?" yes, I literally finished posting the year of the rabbit fic, like, two days ago. but now it's the year of the dragon and it deserves its love too!

This is a sequel set in the same universe as that fic, but that's only required reading if you want to know some of the references. outside of a few points, this one stays pretty self-contained, as long as you just pretend that Ribbon was created for this fic and this fic only.