There Be Dragons in This Here Dungeon

by signelchan

Nah's life is a little messier than she'd like it to be. Between a job that has her doing much more than one person should, a second unofficial job babysitting someone on her mother's behalf, a family that treats her like she's younger than she is, and her friends being some of the nerdiest people alive, she could use a change. Why not find that change in the year of the dragon?

4. Adults Acting Like Really Big Children

While the idea to call Morgan to ask him where the dragon statue had come from did cross Nah's mind several times over the weekend, she was stopped every time by the idea that he was somewhere that talking about it could be a problem in some way. That was the same reason she'd given herself for why she wasn't going to just arrange to meet with him for snacks or dinner or something. If it did indeed come from his aunt he wasn't supposed to have contact with, and it had ended up in her car because she'd been the one to pick him up from his late night farm adventure, then she completely accepted that she'd need to do something a bit more discreet to get the information out of him.

Asking him if they could step into his room when she saw him on Tuesday was, of course, not the smoothest or stealthiest of options, but by the time she was done dropping Ribbon off and was on her way to his house, that was the only idea she'd come up with. To her credit, she'd been doing a lot of fixating on the fact that she was putting her gift to Maribelle in her mother's hands, even though she'd rather have handled it fully by herself to make sure her intentions were fully understood. Sometimes things just couldn't work out according to plan, though, and Nah accepted that she couldn't have all the control in the situation.

She could, however, walk into Morgan's family's house and not be met with him or his parents, but rather his older sister, in the process of getting her jacket on to head out for the evening. "Oh, hey there, Nah," Lucina greeted, waving with a gloved hand as she zipped her jacket up to just below her chin. "I forgot that you're one of Morgan's gang here on Tuesdays, sorry about that."

"I don't know why you're sorry, I'm pretty forgettable," Nah replied, trying to force a smile but instead coming off as looking mildly annoyed with the turn of events. "Looks like you're going out, let me guess…it's on a date?"

Lucina raised a single finger as she thought about the way to answer that, before shaking her head. "As fun as it would be to classify it as a date, I don't think that's quite appropriate. Unless friend dates are a thing, I suppose?"

"I'd say they are."

"Then yes, I'm going on a friend date, that might become a real date if Gerome can swing by and meet up with us later." Lucina stepped around Nah to get to the door, but froze and looked at Nah when she realized she was sounding pretty cryptic about things. "I'm going out for drinks and dinner with a former coworker of mine, not anyone any of you guys here know. Don't worry, I'm not planning friend nights that you'd all be missing out on."

"Good, because I'd be a bit miffed if that was the case." It wasn't that Nah couldn't reach out to some of their other friends here, but rather that she didn't want to intrude on anyone's time when it was a valuable commodity no one had enough of. "Hope it all goes well, and that Gerome can get there and all that stuff. I'm looking forward to when we can spend time together again, though."

"Seriously, it's been far too long since we've last done that without things being crazy all around us. I'll be waiting to hear about your ideas. Gotta go now, bye!" Without anything else to add, Lucina ran out the door and left Nah there to close it behind her, grumbling the whole time about how she didn't want to have to be the one to plan events anymore. She'd done enough planning in the past year to last her a lifetime, and even little get-togethers had started to mentally stress her out.

"Did Lucy leave already?" Morgan called from somewhere else in the house, followed immediately by his fast footsteps that came to a stop in front of Nah as she was approaching the table. "I'm taking your silence as a yes, she did."

Nah blinked at him, not sure why he would do such a thing but knowing that he was completely right to do it. "I mean, she pretty much trampled me at the door because she was in a rush to get to her dinner with her friend. So yes, I'd say she's left already."

"Good," he said in the same breath as a long exhale. "Our parents are currently out of town and she came by to make sure I hadn't burned the place down on accident, and she made it seem like coming out here to check on me was this huge problem or something. I didn't ask for her to do it, she just kind of…chose to do it on her own."

"I'm going to guess that's what being a big sister is like, having to make sure that any younger sibling is out of trouble when the parents aren't around to do it for themselves." That wasn't something that Nah knew from firsthand experience, but she'd spent enough time around people who had siblings and worked with enough children to get the gist of how the relationships went.

Morgan didn't seem super pleased to hear that being the direction Nah went with things, and he made his displeasure quite known. "Sure, but she's got her own life doing her own things, and I'm an actual adult here, I don't need her babying me just because she thinks she needs to step in. If I needed help, I would've asked."

"Maybe your parents asked if she'd keep an eye on you while they're gone? Or, more realistic option because you are an adult, they asked her to keep an eye on the house and since you're here at the house, it just came off that she's watching you." One of those was the probable answer and Nah knew it, but she didn't want to keep standing there debating this topic with Morgan when she had other things they needed to discuss. "But anyway, I was—"

"How is it that when I try getting here early, I fail at the task, but when I have no intentions of making it happen, it happens naturally?" Owain's voice yelled into the house, him entering the front door with Brady right behind him. "At any rate, we have arrived for yet another rousing session of fun and intrigue and dungeon crawling!"

"—never mind, forget I tried saying anything in the first place." Nah awkwardly reached out and patted Morgan's shoulder, her friend merely staring back at her for the contact. "We need to talk later when it's just the two of us, though."

"Hey, what're the two of you doin' gettin' so close like that?" Brady asked, coming inside without taking his jacket off and approaching the pair. "I don't know if I wanna be here with you both if you're gettin' all kissy-faced at each other."

Morgan's head shook rapidly, while Nah took a big step away from him. "We're not doing anything like that, I don't even know why Nah was all in my face to begin with," Morgan said, although his words were far from convincing.

"Uh huh, and what do you have to say to that, Nah? Gonna back him up or what?"

"I'm going to say that he's speaking the truth, even though it's kind of dumb that you'd want to hear it from both of us instead of simply accepting what he says as the truth in the first place." Nah took another step toward the table, only to get the back of her shirt grabbed by a large hand to hold her in place. "Please unhand me, Brady. I'm not scared of you."

"But you're scared of Ma, and that's what I need to talk with you about." He pulled her backward just a bit before realizing he was stretching the collar of her shirt and needed to stop, but when he let go Nah turned around to face him anyway. "Yeah, so…Morg, you cool if Nah and I go somewhere private to talk for a bit? We don't all need to be hearin' about the drama involving my mother."

After doing a quick head count and making sure they weren't ready to start the session yet, Morgan gave permission for them to go use one of the bedrooms on the lower floor to have their talk. Brady thanked him and led Nah out of the room and down the stairs, having to duck at the bottom so that he didn't whack his head on the low ceiling. "It's funny, I need to have a private conversation with someone that's going to be here tonight too, yet you got to me before I could get to them," Nah said as she followed Brady into a room that was clearly an unused guest bedroom. "This wasn't the place I thought I'd be talking to someone, though, that's for sure."

"I mean, same, but…" Brady trailed off, before sitting on the edge of the bed and kicking his legs up on the mattress. "I might've done a bit of lyin' up there to get you to want to come down here with me, but that's no big deal, right?"

"A bit of lying?" Nah repeated, not sure she'd heard him correctly.
"That's what I said. There's not really any drama with Ma, beyond what you're already aware of, and honestly? She told me she thinks she was actin' out of line at the birthday dinner and your gift was far too nice to someone as rude as her." Brady shrugged, as if he hadn't been made aware of the specifics of the gift his mother had received. "She was super thankful about it, though. Wanted me to make sure to thank you on her behalf."

It took a solid minute for the meaning of those words to fully permeate Nah's mind, as she'd been so caught up in the idea that Maribelle wouldn't appreciate the gift or would take up problems with what it actually was, that she hadn't even considered the idea that she'd like it after all. "I mean, what else was I supposed to do after offending her and being as nasty as I was to her that night? I don't like her, I'd rather never have to deal with her again in my life, but I should've been better on your birthday and she needed an apology for it."

"She appreciated it, even if you don't seem to think that she's worthy of that sort of thing. Ma's a hard pill to swallow most days, but it's because she cares about everyone and everything far too much. I don't even know how she can handle being so loving without losin' her mind every single day, but here we are." One of Brady's legs bent upward and he wrapped his arms around his now-bent leg, resting his chin on his knee as best as he could while he looked at Nah. "Now, question is, where'd the money for that gift come from, and how'd you afford that after gettin' me as much as you did just the other day?"

"You're not about to tell me that you're returning the gift I got you because I gave you too much, are you?" Nah asked, trying to avoid explaining where the money had come from because she didn't want to admit to it. Living at home with her parents who made more than enough money for them to all live comfortably had allowed for her to have a little extra spending money than most others in her same job, but she still shouldn't have dropped as much as she did on the presents. "I gave up some of my fun money for the month to make it happen, that's all."

"The same fun money you've been tryin' to replace for half a year now?" He raised an eyebrow, looking at her primarily through the eye that had a scar running across it. "Somethin' tells me you're not bein' as honest about this as you could be."

"Look, I'm not lying to you about where I got the money from, and you're right that it's the same fund that I've been trying to rebuild since…well, you know what I spent far too much on, but it was worth it for making some friends happy. Uh, most of our friends happy, I guess?" That was an experience that, while it was a very good time across the board for everyone who attended, Nah had zero interest in ever being in charge of again, and the mere thought of throwing a multi-purpose party for someone a second time made her start to feel sick to her stomach. "Point is, I've made back most of that money and got to spend it however I wanted, which in this instance was on you. And your mother."

While he didn't seem overly convinced that he was hearing the full truth, Brady also didn't seem like he wanted to keep lobbing accusations of that nature toward his friend, so he visibly relaxed as he sighed. "Understandable, I guess, even if I don't really agree with you doin' it in the first place. You gave me more than my parents did, and they're loaded with money, so it kinda makes it feel like you care more about me or somethin'."

"If we're being totally honest with ourselves, I think I might care more about you than they do, definitely. Not like that's a hard bar to reach, given…well, you know." Nah grimaced as she realized that she'd just doomed herself to needing to say one of her inner thoughts about Maribelle in specific. "Your parents aren't exactly the most outwardly caring people, even if they clearly love you."

"Hey, I agree with you on that, even if I'd like to pretend Ma cares. Her way of lovin' me is a lot more rough than most people's love comes off as." Laying his leg back down and then kicking them both over the edge of the bed, Brady looked at Nah again, this time less judgmentally and with a bit more peace in his gaze. "Not everyone can be blessed with havin' parents as cool as yours, Nah."

She couldn't help herself and ended up snorting and doubling over in laughter at that statement. "I'm sorry, but the word 'cool' doesn't exist in conjunction with my parents. A guy who speaks sort of broken language and a woman who acts like she's a teenager all the time, that's so far from what 'cool' should be that…I don't know, maybe you need to get your definition of the word brushed up on or something?"

"But your dad literally works all the jobs that people think are too boring and dangerous for others to do, and he does 'em with a smile every time he's working. Then there's your mom, and yeah she acts young, but she acts like a friend and that's better than Ma and her whole condescending asshole-ness, if you get what I'm sayin'?" Standing most of the way up, Brady leaned over and put his hands on Nah's shoulders, gripping them tightly until she was looking up into his eyes. "I'd do anythin' to have parents who were as fun as yours are, Nah, and that's no exaggeration. You've always had the coolest parents out of just about everyone I know."

At a loss for words, Nah found herself just staring up into Brady's eyes and wishing that she knew what to say in that moment. There were jokes she could crack, comments she could make, requests she could speak into existence, but none of them felt appropriate for the position she'd found herself in. He was so close to her, looking down at her with a wild desperation in his eyes that she'd never seen before, it was almost—

The door to the room they were in, which had been left open a crack, came swinging open to the point of hitting the wall behind it loudly. Just like before, Owain's presence ruined an entire moment, although the current one was a lot more heated than the last one he'd destroyed. "Hey, are the two of you in here getting romantic, or can you put a pause on your conversation and get upstairs so we can start playing? Noire and Laurent are here and they're ready and I'm obviously ready and that means we just need you two so Morgan can get this show on the road."

"Oh, uh, we're definitely able to put a pause on the conversation we were having," Nah muttered, reaching up to try pulling one of Brady's hands off of herself but finding that he noticed she wanted out and moved his hands before she did. That led to her not grabbing his wrist as intended but instead linking fingers with him for a second, which did nothing but set cylinders in her mind firing that she needed to get out of the room right away.

As she was flying up the stairs, she could hear that the guys were still down on the lower floor and were obviously talking about her, but she couldn't bring herself to care about listening to what they were saying. These Tuesday sessions were starting to become more of a mental drain on her than she'd ever anticipated something becoming, and if things kept up at their current pace she was going to have to quit their campaign outright to keep her sanity intact in some way. Back in the dining room, the others were sitting at the table and seemed happy to have her with them, although it was obvious that Noire was trying to piece together where Nah had been and why she looked so upset about it.

No one said a word about what had happened once all of them were in their spots, though, and that was something Nah found herself incredibly thankful for in that moment. Once Morgan started the session and allowed the players to once again immerse themselves in the world of his creation, it was easier to forget all about what had happened downstairs because their real-world problems were no longer worries they needed to contend with. For the next several hours, they were their characters, and their characters weren't actively dealing with problems such as flirting with each other and giving presents to people's parents and finding weird dragon statues in their cars, for just a few examples.

Nah, able to slip into character as Farona fairly easy all things considered, was once again in the heat of battle and choosing to fight rather than to play support, because she knew that lingering on the sidelines would allow too many thoughts to seep into her mind. She positioned herself where she could flank Noire's character Zelaia as she lobbed arrow after arrow at enemies before breaking into her rage that she threw into battle every once in a while, and together they made a fairly formidable duo.

The only way it could've been better would have been if they were able to get another long-range fighter on their side, but everyone else was better at the up-close combat, and they were more than happy to jump into the heat of battle and retreat as needed to get patched up by their dedicated healer. "You know, one of these days, one of you is going to be felled and I won't be close enough to save you," Farona said, while Nah looked around at the table before her eyes narrowed toward Owain. "Especially you, Roshan. You are going to be the detriment to this whole group with your reckless nature."

"Those are some big words coming from you," he replied, holding up his pen to shake towards Nah like a sword. "If we weren't on the same side of this whole thing, I'd probably challenge you to a fight."

"No fighting within the party," Morgan sternly reminded him, breaking the illusion that the characters themselves were conversing for just a second before going back to silently watching what was unfolding.

Brady cleared his throat to get everyone's attention, and once he had it he spoke, as his character. "The big voice out there's right, no fighting within our group. We've gotta be a unified team if we want to make it out of here alive."

"Unified? I'd rather fight for myself and happen to have you around as backup," Laurent interjected, putting on his best cat-like voice to really sell who he was speaking as. "Once we've solved these problems and cleared this dungeon, I feel that it'll be time we go our separate ways, take on the world as individuals rather than as this pathetic team we've built."

The banter went on for the next ten minutes, everyone chiming in and going back and forth about what they should do once they finished clearing the dungeon and how none of them particularly liked each other and would be better off separating. Eventually, it got to the point that Morgan had to throw a random encounter at them to get them to shut up, and the team once again fell into their usual roles to take care of business. This time, Nah's role as Farona was not just to hang back and help out with keeping others from dying, but rather to lob magic spells that she wasn't sure she was even using correctly.

That was because, in the heat of the battle, Brady's phone had started going off and he'd been reluctant to ignore it, and understandably so. The call was coming from his mother, and everyone there knew just how much of a problem it could become if Maribelle was ignored in any capacity; because of wanting to be alone when he answered it, he had to step away from the table and therefore skip out on his turns as combat continued. Since his character was the group's bard, and had been doing a lot of magic-lobbing himself, in his absence it was either Nah or Owain needing to fill in the void, and there was no way that Owain was ever going to let his human warlock do anything but slash at enemies.

Not that it was a big problem for Nah, given that she'd taken on the cleric class to fill a gap that existed within the overall team composition and she needed to learn how to do the magic casting at some point. Morgan was able to walk her through her offensive spells quickly, and even remarked on how she'd set herself up for success with the choices she'd made on her spells. Even if the rolls she made were less than ideal, the spells were still hitting with a decent amount of force behind them and she was being helpful in the battle where she wouldn't have been otherwise.

When Brady returned to the table, he looked like he'd been crying and sat down without saying a word, only to reach up and rub at the corner of one of his eyes. "Sorry about that, Ma called me to tell me about somethin' that happened earlier and she forgot I was here doin' this and she was…gonna try and save it for later but she mentioned what it was and I needed to hear all of it, got it? Just let me cry and handle it myself."

"I wasn't planning on taking a break during this part of the session, but I think we need it right now," Morgan said, sounding slightly defeated as he had to change his plans to accommodate the needs of others. "We can meet back at the table in fifteen, and hopefully we're all emotionally good to go at that point."

The first second it wasn't going to be seen as a disruption to everyone else, Nah reached over and grabbed Brady's arm, holding it as tight as she could. "Do you want to talk about what happened, or are you still trying to process it?" she asked quietly, trying to give him the dignity of not making it everyone's problem.

"It's just stupid and dumb and you're gonna laugh about it if you hear me tell you about it," he replied, his voice cracking a bit as he spoke. "That goes for everyone, this is gonna be the funniest damn thing anyone's ever heard if I tell you why I'm cryin' and that's the truth."

"I don't plan on laughing if I hear it," Noire said to him, holding up her hands defensively. "Even if it's as silly as you say it is, I promise I won't laugh."

"Same here, you know I'll treat whatever you have to say with respect." Nah gave a small nod to show that she was in agreement with Noire's words, yet Brady still seemed unconvinced and didn't want to speak.

It wasn't until Owain, Laurent, and Morgan all stepped away from the table for their individual reasons that Brady took the ladies up on their offer. "Ma called because she was just at the instrument repair place and they said that there's nothin' that can be done to fix my violin," he whispered to them, both ladies looking at each other before back at him in disbelief. "Yeah, I know, kinda stupid and dumb and all that, but I've had that thing since I could even play a violin and now it's broken and it's all my fault for bein' dumb with it."

"Neither of us are laughing at you, we don't think this is stupid at all," Nah pointed out, although when she glanced at Noire she could see that there was some sort of negative thought brewing in her friend's mind. "Come on now, we all know what it's like to find out that something we love can't be repaired."

"I mean, you're right about that, I suppose." Noire's eyes shifted down to the table and their little character tokens still set up all over it. "I've lost my fair share of things I loved because of my own recklessness."

"And I've…I don't think you guys need to be reminded of this, but I'm not the best driver around and I've lost a car or two over being so bad at driving." Nah wasn't going to mention the addendum to that fact, that she hadn't actually ever wrecked a vehicle, but had lost them in various other ways that had resulted from her bad driving. "So I get it, losing your violin's tough and it's going to be hard to work through this sadness."

His eyes closing, Brady took in a shaky breath before saying, "That thing's how I make my money, you know. Goin' around, taking part in shows and workin' for people who just want a bit of classical music in their life. And now it's broken into three pieces and those pieces ain't gettin' put back together."

"That really sucks that it happened, and I hope you can get a new one or something." Not sure what else there was to say, Nah thought for a second before adding, "If you need help with getting the money for it, I'm sure we can—"

"Don't rope me into raising money for a musical instrument. I'm not helping there."

"—fine, since Noire wants nothing to do with it, I'm sure I can help you get a bit of money to replace it." When she'd come up with that offer, Nah had imagined it as being a crowdfunding type endeavor where everyone pitched in a little bit to help with the cost, but the second Noire had spoken her disapproval, she realized it would probably be just her trying to offer money. "The church, I bet they'd be open to helping with getting funds for the replacement, since I know you've played for them in the past."

"That's really sweet of you to think about that, Nah, but Ma's already said she has a plan to get me a new violin sooner rather than later. She's got the money burnin' a hole in her pocket, after all, so it's not gonna be that huge of a problem for her to solve. Biggest issue I see is findin' one that my hands and arms can play comfortably, since a lot of violins are just…too small for me to hold in a way that doesn't hurt." Brady raised his arms to give a visual demonstration of what his problem was, but because neither of them had ever used a violin for themselves, it wasn't the best explanation.

"You get your problem all taken care of, or should I step away again?" Morgan asked as he approached the table once more, looking at the three who hadn't left. When he didn't get an answer he took a single step backward, before shaking his head and coming to his seat again anyway. "I'm taking the silence as an invitation to get back so I can get ready to resume the session. Don't mind me, I'll be preparing more enemy encounters."

Before she had the chance to open her mouth and sass Morgan for what he'd said, Nah heard her phone ringing in her pocket and she blinked a few times before checking it. "Why's my dad calling me?" she asked out loud when she saw the screen and her father's picture on full display. "He's not even in Ylisse right now, this doesn't make any sense."

"Better hope he's not dealing with broken violins," Noire teasingly told her, waggling a finger in Brady's direction to remind them both about what they'd been talking about moments before. "But seriously, hope everything's okay with him, your dad's pretty neat."

Nah didn't even have time to think up a reply before she was answering the call and rushing toward the staircase heading toward the lower floor. "Dad, is everything okay?" she asked immediately upon getting her phone to her face. "You never call me, and you definitely never call when you're doing work stuff."

"Hm? Oh, everything is fine here with Gregor and the guys," he replied after a tense handful of seconds during which Nah had made it down the stairs and back into that guest bedroom she'd been in before the session. "Are you at home right now, or are you with your friends?"

"Friends, definitely with friends. Is Mom not answering her phone?" A pit was beginning to form in Nah's stomach at the mere idea that her mother, who was perpetually connected to the digital world as a reclamation of her youth (even though the digital world hadn't really been a thing until she was an adult), was unable to answer her phone for some reason. Despite how she acted, Nowi was a lot older than she would care to admit, and any sort of problem that would leave her unable to receive a call could be a serious one.

"Your mother was on the phone with me when she suddenly left without saying why, and there has been no explanation since then. It's no secret to Gregor that you like your time with your friends, Nah, but could you please go check on my Nowi for me?" There was a hint of genuine desperation in Gregor's voice that Nah couldn't ignore, and she wasn't going to tell him no, no matter how much she wanted to stick around for the second half of the night's session.

"I'll be on my way home right now. Thanks for calling me and letting me know about this, Dad. I hope everything's okay." Nah said her goodbyes after repeating her assurances a couple of times, and soon she was back upstairs looking a bit downtrodden as she came to tell her friends the bad news.

"Let me guess, your dad needs you to go home for some reason," Morgan dryly guessed, looking up from his materials to see Nah give an uncertain expression before nodding. "That's how it always seems to go around here, isn't it?"

She already was worried about the reason she'd been asked to head home, and now Nah was having to deal with disappointing one of her friends, but family had to come first in a moment like that. "Sorry, but my dad's worried sick about what might've happened to my mom and I'm not letting her suffer alone if something's really wrong. I'll be here next week, and that's a promise."

As she turned to go get her things and head out, another voice chimed in to stop her in her tracks. "If it's no problem with the rest of you, I'd like to go with Nah to make sure things are fine. If something is wrong, she's not strong enough physically to get her mom off the ground or anything like that, and I'd like to be able to help where I can." She turned around just in time to see Brady standing from his chair and striding toward her, and she wasn't about to tell him he wasn't welcome.

Instead, she asked him the question that came to mind when he made his request of the others. "Isn't that going to leave you without a way to get anywhere, since you drove over here and all?"

"Didn't drive over today, got a ride with Owain. Don't know why I did that, but I guess the reason for it makes sense now." He clasped a hand on the top of Nah's head for a second before continuing on his way to where the jackets and shoes were gathered. "Let's get goin' before there's the chance anything else can happen."

On one hand, Nah was more than happy to have someone stay with her to calm her nerves if she started getting too into her own mind about things. On the other hand, she wasn't exactly thrilled that it was going to be Brady of all people. And on the mystical third hand, she was still annoyed that Morgan was going to get to escape explaining himself for the dragon statue for at least another week. "Thanks for tagging along, and sorry about this again, everyone! I promise next week will be different."

"Care less about appeasing us and care more about checking on your mother," Laurent called in return, sounding the most concerned Nah could ever remember him being, which wasn't saying much in the slightest.

"He's right, you know," Brady said, in the process of getting his shoes on. "It's not exactly a short drive from here to your place, even though I'm sure whatever's happened isn't bad enough to be time-sensitive. Better safe than sorry, though, yeah?"

"Y-yeah, better safe than sorry," Nah repeated, the warmness she'd felt in the past when talking to and about Brady beginning to course through her veins again. When they walked out to her car, she was mentally fighting with her inner voice telling her to reach over and grab his hand, but she resisted given the circumstances of why they were leaving together in the first place. As she got into the driver's seat, she went through the mental checklist of all the warnings and reminders she needed to give someone riding with her, but when she opened her mouth to verbally deliver them, he hushed her on the spot.

In fact, the only thing he said when getting into the car after moving his seat back as far as it could go, was asking about where to put the decorative dragon that was currently residing in the seat. He didn't seem to think anything of it, strange or unique or any other qualifier he could've had in mind, but when she asked him to place it gently on the back seat, he chuckled. "For it bein' something that lives in your car, I wouldn't expect you to want me to be gentle with it."

"Look, it's not actually mine and I don't want it broken, just in case the person it does belong to wants it back in one piece." That felt like the best way to approach that topic, given that she was only mostly sure that it was Morgan's, but if he'd wanted it or was trying to pawn it off on someone else, she didn't know. "Can we not worry about the dragon and just get going? I don't want to get home to my mom dying on the floor or something."

"…Should you be drivin' if your brain's jumpin' to those kinds of conclusions?" Brady asked her, a valid question to raise given that she was clearly not being as rational as she should've been. However, Nah answered him by buckling herself in and demanding he get into his seat and do the same, something he responded to with a whimper and following the directions. Yes, she shouldn't have been driving because her motivation to get home was emotional and led her to make risky decisions while driving, but they didn't get into any trouble and she didn't run any stops that she shouldn't have, so the return trip was a success, somehow.

Upon getting into the house, Nah was met with Nowi sitting on the couch, bundled up in a bunch of blankets with a cheesy romance movie on the TV screen. "You're home early," Nowi said when she realized her daughter was standing there, followed by looking at the tall, physically-imposing man standing directly behind her. "And you've brought someone home with you."

"Mom, what's going on?" Nah asked, trying to sound commanding even though she was more confused than anything else. "Dad called me and told me that something happened to you because you dropped mid-call and didn't reconnect with him, and he wanted me to come by and check to see if you were okay."

"Oh, is that what this is about? I guess the call stopped when the phone hit the…" Nowi trailed off, looking at the TV long enough to pause her movie before standing up from the couch and shedding all of her blankets. "I dropped my phone into the bathtub while filling it for a nice, lovely bubble bath. Must have not stayed connected to the call after it hit the water, so Gregor didn't hear me yelling about dropping it in the first place. Mind letting me use your phone to call him back?"

"Depends, are you going to drop it in the bathtub too?" The look Nowi gave Nah for that comment was particularly icy, and the younger woman flinched from it, grabbing her phone and handing it to her mother without another word. "Thanks, Nah, I always know I can count on you. Let me patch things up with your father, and then you can tell me why you've brought another guy into my house."

Nah rolled her eyes and turned to Brady, who seemed to still be dealing the confusion the whole situation had brought upon them. "I knew she'd act like that the moment she saw you around with me, but I sort of…figured it would've happened later, because I thought she was dying or something."

"Ma does the same stuff, back in the day she used to be a real pain in the neck about bringin' Severa over." Shaking his head, Brady took a small side-step toward the door, almost as if he was ready to leave already. "Come on, I don't think either of us wanna be dealin' with the conversation your mom's gonna have with us when she's done talkin' to your dad."

"Normally I'd agree, but she's kind of got my phone and, well, you know me and driving aren't exactly friends. I'd rather know I can call if something happens to my car than be at the mercy of needing to actually drive safely." Motioning for Brady to follow her, Nah headed to the giant window overlooking the back yard, which was covered in shadows outside of the area the indoors light streamed out to. "If the weather was warmer, I'd suggest going out there and doing some stargazing or something like that, to pass the time while we wait for Mom to finish with my phone."

"Why would you bother with tryin' to stargaze here in town, when there's so many city lights that you can barely see anything?" Brady sounded like he knew a thing or two about the way to properly stargaze, and so Nah looked over her shoulder to see what he was doing. He was about halfway between where he'd originally been standing and where she was now, eyes narrowed as he looked toward the window directly over Nah's head. "Back when we were younger, I'd go out to Owain's place all the time and we'd be out on the trampoline in his backyard, starin' up at the sky until it was covered in stars. Those were some good times, that's for sure."

"So what I'm hearing is that we need to get out into farmland to get to see all the stars in the sky, got it," Nah said with a nod. "My backyard's still pretty good for it, since we're not really in the thick of Ylisstol. But yeah, I bet it'd be better out there where it's pitch black everywhere you look."

"It's an experience, that's for sure. Been over a decade since I last did it, but I'd do it again if I could. Bet Owain would be happy to have us out there." Brady paused, before stepping closer to Nah and looking down at her. "I still spend a lot of time with him, and it's been even more lately because all of his other close friends aren't exactly available anymore, but I know one of these days that jerk friend of his is gonna come back and he's never gonna want to hang out with us again."

"Jerk friend…oh, you mean that Niles guy, don't you?" Nah's face scrunched at saying the name of the man she'd only run into a few times, but that she'd hoped she would never have to meet again. When Brady nodded to confirm her guess, she gave a long sigh. "Of course that's who you mean. I don't get what Owain sees in that guy, he's gross and rude and is always making nasty comments about others."

The corners of his mouth turning up in amusement, Brady said, "I know exactly what he sees in Niles, and it's somethin' I'd rather not think about. N-not that it's anything particularly bad, it's just that…Owain sees Niles as a way out of Ylisse, and he's hopin' that he'll be able to make that happen one of these days. Then he'll be gone just like Sev is, and while that's fine, that's great honestly, it'll suck for me who gets left behind."

"He wouldn't ever dream of leaving Ylisse and all of his family and friends behind!" Nah felt slightly impassioned as she spoke, even though she knew that Owain did in fact intend on finding Niles back in his home country. That was something she didn't want to mention to Brady and make the situation even worse than it already was, so she kept her lips firmly zipped on the matter and pretended like she was ignorant to the truth. "I highly doubt he'd go without his parents, at the very least, and we both know they're not leaving this place."

"Y…yeah, I think you're right on that. Thanks for remindin' me of reality here, Nah. Greatly appreciate it." That was when Brady came over to scoop Nah up in a big hug as part of his way of thanking her.

And that was when Nowi reentered the room, holding Nah's phone out in front of her and calling for her daughter to come get it. As Nah was being hugged at the moment, she couldn't do anything to stop the inevitable drama that was about to unfold, and she had to be helpless as Nowi saw that Brady had his arms all over her daughter. "Excuse me, sir, but who gave you the right to be like a bear on my little girl just now?"

"Mom, please, we're not doing this…" Nah muttered, as she was released from the hug so that Brady could turn around and face Nowi in all of her annoyance and disappointment.

"Mrs. Balakin, I didn't mean any harm by huggin' Nah, she was just helpin' me understand that one of my fears isn't rational and that I'm gettin' worried over nothing." Brady, for being tall and physically intimidating, seemed to shrink back and get smaller as he was stared down by the absolutely tiny Nowi, with her empty hand curled up on her hip. "You can even ask Nah herself, she'll back me up."

"Of course she'll back you up, the two of you were probably in here arranging the cover story while I was on the phone with my loving husband." Nowi gave a long, drawn-out breath as she leaned forward, trying to look scarier than she was capable of being. "Do I need to call your mother and tell her what behaviors you're up to?"

"Behaviors? I wasn't up to anythin' at all!"

Nah stepped around where Brady was to get in between him and her mother, reaching out for her phone and snatching it from Nowi's hand so that it couldn't be used as a bargaining chip in the whole situation. "Mom, seriously, I don't know what your problem is with me having friends that are guys, but you need to cool it! I was honestly just telling Brady that the stuff he's thinking about isn't realistic, and he hugged me for it."

"Likely story." Her nose twitching as she scrunched it slightly, Nowi locked eyes with Nah for an extended moment. "I don't want you rushing into things that you're not ready for, with guys that you barely know."

"Now I know you're just being annoying for the sake of it, you know I've known Brady for most of my life at this point." Nah matched her mother's nose scrunch, before getting her mother to break into a fit of laughter at the absurdity of what they were currently arguing about. "See, told you that you're just being annoying."

"Ever the old woman in a young lady's body, you can't put up with even the slightest of jokes," Nowi said, reaching up to brush her long bangs out of her eyes so that she could see properly. "I'm getting back to watching my movies, but I need Brady out of here as soon as possible, before I'm falling asleep on the couch and he's still here and the two of you are getting up to Naga knows what."

"Mom! Stop implying that I bring guy friends over to sleep with them!" The irritation in her voice came off a lot stronger than the situation called for, and Nowi's reaction to it was to mumble an apology to her daughter before returning to her space on the couch. As she walked away, Nah looked at Brady with an apologetic expression of her own. "Sorry about all of that, but I knew it'd be coming. She seriously does this every single time a guy comes home with me."

"It's a bit more extreme than what Ma does," he conceded, almost surprised that he'd just witnessed something that his mother didn't do in a more infuriating manner. "But I'm down for following your mom's wishes and gettin' out of here soon. Ma's probably expectin' me over at the house soon anyway."

The mere thought of having to potentially cross paths with Maribelle after everything else that had happened that night made Nah feel slightly sick, but she wasn't about to tell Brady he needed to fend for himself on his way home. "Right. I'm ready to go if you are."

He nodded at her, and they went back across the house to the front door, ignoring Nowi and the trashy movie she'd gotten back into watching. No one said a word until the two were in the car and able to feel like they could breathe without being judged in some way. "Your mom hasn't always acted this way, has she?" Brady asked abruptly. "I don't remember her doin' all this stuff back when we were younger."

"It's something to do with this being the year of the dragon. She's always been on edge about me bringing people home but lately it's been even more intense. I think she's worried that I'm going to fall into behaviors that I don't actually have any interest in." Nah waved a hand in the air as if she was trying to brush off that thought. "I don't plan on making any dumb choices this year, and if I did make any, it certainly wouldn't be those kinds of choices."

"Yeah, can't say I'm followin' you on this one, but if you think you know what's goin' on, then that's good enough for me, I think." Brady punctuated his sentence with fastening his seatbelt, then as he pulled his hand away he froze and looked at Nah with horror plastered across his face. "Wait, I think I'm followin' you now, are you sayin' that your mom thinks you're gonna start sleeping with guys out of nowhere?"

"I don't just think that, I know that she thinks I'm going to. Which, uh, hello? That's not me, that's never been me, I've had cutesy little boyfriends in the past but we never even got to hand holding, why would I suddenly be jumping from struggling with commitment to full on sexual behaviors?" Nah began letting her car roll backwards down the driveway, slowly as to not rush them through their conversation. "I mean, I get why she's scared of it, given that…other cultures apparently push that behavior? But she's forgetting that I'm her odd duck of a daughter and I'm not going to fall into those traps."

"Sorry, but you've never even held hands with a guy before?" Brady's mind was clearly trying to fixate on the less problematic parts of the conversation they were having, and honestly, Nah couldn't blame him. She confirmed that he'd understood her correctly and he gave a sound of surprise about it. "I never would've guessed that's the case, I know some of those boyfriends you had were pretty handsy."

"They might've been with others, but with me? Not even close." The car was almost entirely out in the street before Nah started turning the wheel and shifting into gear to get driving, but she didn't mind that she was once again acting reckless with her driving. It wasn't like they lived on a busy street where the action would've been dangerous to her safety. "I know that you've had quite the list of relationships yourself, and at least one of them went places I can't even imagine."

"Who're you talkin' about with that? Sev? Because if you heard it from her, I want you to know that she's nothin' but an overdramatic liar about that sort of thing. I never slept with her and I definitely never slept with her." The look on Brady's face having to make that assertion was one that Nah wished she could've seen more of, but driving was more important than seeing how serious he was that he hadn't been sleeping with his most notable former girlfriend. "Closest we ever got was somethin' I'd rather not think about ever again, but it wasn't even that close."

"Noted, thanks for sharing."

"Look, you're the one who started talkin' about that, and I can't let you throw that sort of accusation my way without defendin' my honor. Ma would have my damn head if I'd even gotten close to gettin' intimate with anyone back then." Brady paused, then groaned. "I mean, she'd have my head if I did it now too, unless I was already married to whoever it was, and even then, who knows how she'd handle it. Would probably depend on who the lady is and how she feels about her."

While it wasn't an appropriate time for making the kind of comment that had come to her mind, Nah found herself unable to resist saying something. "Then I guess it's settled, we can't ever become a thing because your mother absolutely hates me and would never let you be happy about the relationship."

"Uh, well, then it's good that I don't think I want to date you right now?" He said it as a question, but it was clear that Brady wasn't looking for any sort of answer to what he'd said. The words hit Nah hard, given the feelings she'd been grappling with over him and how he could've been someone she saw herself getting romantic with eventually, but it wasn't something she was going to talk about. "Maybe someday in the future we can look at that, if we're both thirty and single, but right now we're…you know, mid-twenties, still a lot of life to live, don't need to strap ourselves to one of our closest friends just to get a little bit of companionship in our lives."

"Totally agree with you there," Nah replied, masking her true feelings on the matter with a forced smile. "But I'll hold you to that. This time, six years from now, if we're both still single then we'll have to consider just, you know, getting together to say we're with someone and go from there."

"Tax benefits, that's what Ma calls those kinds of relationships. I can't say I get it, but she's a lawyer so she probably deals a lot with dissolvin' marriages that only happened for the money." Turning to look out the window at the dark houses they were driving past, Brady made a few noises that showed he was trying to come up with something else to say, but words never formed.

That was fine by Nah, because she didn't know what there was she wanted to say either. She felt a little upset by the turn of events there that evening, on top of everything else she'd had to experience prior to being called home earlier than intended. It almost felt like the world was dead-set on making her suffer in one way or another, and given that the year they were living in was apparently meant to be good to the manaketes, it made her wonder if there was anything she'd done that had caused Naga to want to punish her in all these ways.

When she pulled up outside Brady's house, she could barely muster a goodbye before feeling like she was just wasting her time on things. She didn't want to make it obvious that she wasn't thrilled with how their conversation had gone, so she forced herself to sound happy as she chirped out a good night, but the second the door was closed and he was on his way up to his front door, she was peeling off into the street, her emotions getting the better of her. "I never should've let myself get convinced that he felt anything for me," she cried as she drove, her foot easily hitting the floor of the car as she sped off, faster and faster with every second that passed. "I'm stupid for thinking anyone would ever actually want to date me. If someone wanted to do it, they would've done it by now!"

The only reason Nah snapped out of her upset behavior was the tell-tale flashing lights of a police officer catching her speeding down residential streets, and no matter how much she thought her day had sucked before, it could only get worse by having to talk to a police officer and deal with paying for a speeding ticket. Not even the saddest puppy-dog eyes and insistence that she'd just gone through a breakup (which she hadn't) was enough to get the officer who pulled her over to even reduce the fine slightly, and she was forced to face the immediate consequences of her actions. Things sucked before, they sucked even more now, and the money she could have easily dropped on paying her speeding ticket had already been spent on a guy that didn't like her and his mother that hated her.

Ever since the start of the year of the dragon, Tuesdays had been nothing but horrible for Nah, and she was looking forward to when that would finally change.

---

Of all the weeks to start her new role at Ribbon's school, that one was simply the worst to do it on. Nah's mind had been scrambled with how hard she was trying to avoid needing to tell her parents about the ticket she'd received, as well as thinking about how she was going to try and patch things up with Brady as well as get to the bottom of things with Morgan and the dragon statue in her car. She simply hadn't thought much at all about how she was going to be a fixture at that school twice a week, and so when Friday morning came around and she was driving up to the school she'd typically only gone to on Tuesdays, nothing seemed planned out at all. There was nothing set up for what she'd be doing, no blueprint for the kinds of guidance she'd be there to provide, nothing at all.

And that lack of planning and preparation was what led her to spending the whole day writing reports in her office space, with Ribbon occasionally popping by and looking into the room before scurrying off. The first time it happened, Nah didn't think much of it, but after the fourth hour where she saw Ribbon's face in her window without so much as a wave, she began to suspect that something was amiss. By the time lunch came around, Nah had decided that she was going to go grab the girl and check in with her then, rather than potentially subject her to bullying during that break time, and so she tucked her paperwork away and headed toward the cafeteria.

Upon Nah entering the spacious room, the gathered students began to fall quiet, and even though there never was true silence in that space, it was just quiet enough that it was obvious everyone's eyes were on her. Not that it mattered to Nah, but she knew it would matter to Ribbon if she called any attention to her in that way, so she quickly had to divert her path away from where the girl was sitting by herself to try and shake off the idea that she was there for Ribbon specifically.

"Hey, mind if I check in with you guys?" Nah asked a group of girls who seemed snooty enough that they could use some redirection in their lives. Most of them stared blankly at her and laughed, before the supposed leader of the group said, in a very haughty tone, that she and her friends didn't have special needs and didn't need her help. That irked Nah, to the point that she sat down in the open space next to them anyway, letting the comment roll right off her shoulders. "On Fridays, I'm not here as a special needs instructor, I'm here to monitor mental health of students. And guess what, you're students so you're on my caseload today. Congrats."

"We're not weirdos, we don't have 'problems' like that," the leader replied, batting her eyelashes that were clearly fake and glued to her face. "I think if you want to make sure that people aren't going to try and kill themselves, you might be looking at the wrong table."

Nah's eyes widened as she realized that some of the girls there were motioning over in the vague direction that Ribbon was sitting in. Still, she couldn't make things worse for Ribbon by making it clear she was the reason for all of this in the first place, so she had to scramble to come up with a response. "Suicidal ideation isn't the only reason for mental health checks," she explained, knowing that she was speaking far out of her element on that one. "Delusions of grandeur are also a reason for them."

"I don't know what that means," one of the other girls said, her face caked so heavily in makeup that she must have cost her parents a sizeable allowance on the regular for her beauty regimen, "but I do know that you're an adult, and adults aren't welcome here. You're going to make the boys think that we, like, follow rules or something."

"We're above the rules here," the leader added, most of the others nodding in agreement. "Teachers can't punish us, our parents won't let them."

"You're all like twelve years old, there's no reason for you to be this way." Standing up as she realized that she was not going to make any progress with that group and didn't want to be wasting her time with them any longer, Nah shook her head at their entire posse. "I'm ashamed to now know what the current generation thinks is appropriate. You ladies all can do much, much better than this."

As she walked away, deciding that mortifying Ribbon would be fine after all, Nah could hear the girls snickering and calling rude names after her, as the roar of the cafeteria picked back up to what she assumed was its normal volume. "Don't sit here," Ribbon firmly told her as she came closer. "I want to have lunch alone."

"Sorry, Ribbon, but I'm here for you and I'm not letting you push me out." The nearest kids were several seats away, and there were some faces turned looking at them as Nah sat down and put her hands on the table in front of herself, but she needed to do this for Ribbon's sake. "Has the bullying kept going, even after what happened before?"

"The girls you were sitting with, they're some of the ones doing it. I guess they heard what I tried to do somehow and it's been…worse than it's ever been." Ribbon's eyes shifted to the table. "I don't know why I even told you about it."

Making the mental note to go to the principal and discuss how that was a problem in plain terms, Nah glanced toward the gaggle of girls, several of which were looking over at them and one having grabbed her hair and wrapped it around her neck, only to turn back to Ribbon and see her shrinking down toward her lunch. "I'm not going to talk about any of that, then," she decided, tapping her fingers across the table slowly until they were on Ribbon's lunchbox. "Did you make this lunch yourself?"

"Dad made it this morning, it's all leftovers from last night's dinner but it's still good." Ribbon's voice was quiet and small, unlike her in every way possible. "I wish I could've eaten it at home, though."

"Is your mom at home right now?" Nah asked, feeling like she was making progress in getting through to Ribbon, if only a little. "I would assume she is, if you think you'd be able to eat at home."

"I don't know. You can call and ask her."

Letting her head knock back slowly and then come forward once more, Nah wasn't sure how to respond to that, given that Ribbon had just closed up yet again. "I'm not calling her to ask anything, sorry."

"Then have your mom do it."

"Ribbon, no one is calling anyone right now. If anyone is telling your mother what's happening, it's someone who's responsible for this behavior in the first place. Not you, not me, and especially not my mom." Just the mental image of Nowi being responsible for relaying information of that nature to someone was one that Nah quickly scrubbed from her mind. "I'm planning on speaking to—"

She was cut off by Ribbon sliding down under the table. "Stop speaking to people for me! You've only made things worse!"

"Ribbon, get up from under there." No response. "Seriously, that's dirty and you're making more of a scene than you probably want to be." Still no response, other than a small sniffle. "I'm not joining you down there, just so you know."

"I don't want you down here anyway."

None of her training had ever prepared Nah for needing to deal with this sort of situation, but she wasn't going to let a group of preteen bullies get the upper hand on a child she genuinely cared for. While she waited for Ribbon to emerge from her hiding place, she thought about all of the ways she could approach bringing those girls to justice, only to find that every possibility didn't matter when the children were the ones in control. As long as the teachers and staff at the school had no power over the students, there would be no solution to the problem that had been plaguing Ribbon for as long as she'd been in school. "I think I'm going to go back to my office now," she said after giving it several minutes but still not having Ribbon emerge from under the table. "You know where to find me if you want."

She wasn't followed out of the cafeteria, wasn't called after as she left, and wasn't chased down by those rapid-fire footsteps she was so used to, and the lack of any of that showed Nah just how deeply this bullying was bothering Ribbon. So even though she'd said she wasn't going to be doing any calling, she went back on her word and called the district offices to let them know about the serious undermining of staff and endangerment of students taking place at the school. It wasn't technically a lie she'd told Ribbon, because the person she spoke to wasn't one of the ones that had been mentioned, but she did know that it was potentially going to have consequences that Ribbon and the other students would have to face.

Nah went back to her paperwork after that, and spent the rest of the day in that office doing the opposite of what she'd expected she'd be doing while there on her former day off. As dismissal came near, she checked her email and saw that the principal had messaged out to everyone employed in the building that an "anonymous" report had come in that there was a lack of respect from students to the staff and that there needed to be training done in the future regarding how to handle that sort of behavior.

"It's a start," Nah said under her breath as she deleted the email, "but something tells me that's not going to be enough to turn this place around, not with brats like those girls thinking they're running everything."

A couple of minutes later, a knock came at the office door and Nah looked up from her laptop to see Ribbon there at the door, her eyes piercing through the little window. She waved her inside and the girl came in, looking like she'd been through hell and back in the time since lunch. "I finished a test early and got to come down here as a reward," she explained, still quiet like she'd been in the cafeteria. "I asked if I could come see Miss Dinah and my teacher was chill about it. Are you proud of me?"

"For which part, using one of my professional names or actually asking to use your resources?" Nah replied, cracking a smile at Ribbon, despite getting nothing in return. "I am proud for both parts, by the way. You're really showing that you're growing."

"Right, yeah. I just wanted to get down here to get away from the mocking. Mom's going to be so mad at me but I'm asking to get my hair cut after this, because I can't take this anymore." Ribbon grabbed her long braid and swung its end around a few times before throwing it behind her, slamming herself down into one of the chairs in the office. "I already know that Mom's going to get upset because it's not taguel-like to have short hair, but I just can't take it. I really can't."

While it felt instinctual to ask Ribbon if she was making her choice on impulse or if she'd really thought about it, Nah decided that she wasn't going to address it at all. That was something that Ribbon would need to take up with her mother on her own. "I understand that you're going through a lot right now, so just make yourself comfortable right there and when the bell rings, you can head out and go home for the day. I'm not going to ask you anything, I'm not going to try and be all professional therapist or anything with you, I'm just going to sit here and keep doing my own work so you can decompress."

Ribbon raised her eyebrows at Nah but didn't say anything, merely pulling her legs up into the chair with her so that she was somewhat curled up in a ball as she sat there, waiting for that dismissal bell to blare through the room. The silence between them was almost bizarre, almost, given that usually when they were together Ribbon was talking about whatever was on her mind and Nah was trying to get her to go do something else. If only it hadn't been prefaced with such a broken admission of what was going to play out after school, then it really would have been the most bizarre experience possible.

After several minutes of that silence, Nah looked at the time in the corner of her computer and saw how close to the end of the day it really was, taking in a deep breath as she glanced toward Ribbon and how she was still curled up. "How are your parents doing, by the way?" she asked, hoping to fill the silent air with a bit of light conversation while they let the last couple of minutes before school ended pass them by. "I feel like I never hear about how things are going."

"Ask them yourself."

The expected response, muffled by Ribbon's knees pressing against her face. "Right, I suppose I can do that," Nah said, nodding slowly. "How about your sister? How's she doing?"

"Ask my parents when you ask them how they're doing."

More words, but still nothing that Nah really wanted to hear. She looked at the clock again, noting that there was under a minute before the bell would ring and Ribbon would be bolting out of the office to head home. "What about your brother?"

"I know you know how to ask him how he's doing." At least that time, Ribbon's head perked up a little so that she could give Nah a very annoyed glance. "And before you even try it, ask him about the others, don't ask me about them."

"It was worth a shot," Nah admitted in defeat, knowing that she had been successful in doing one thing during that exchange: she'd gotten Ribbon to at least look at her while they were talking. "I'll reach out to all of them this weekend, I suppose."

Right on cue, the bell rang through the office and Ribbon sprung up from the chair, not even giving Nah a goodbye as she headed out the door, letting it slam behind her. At least, that was the case until she came back moments later, hanging her head slightly. "Thanks for letting me sit with you for a bit, Nah," Ribbon said, lifting her head only to give Nah a playful smile, one that felt right at home on her face under normal circumstances. "I'll see you on Tuesday…and I'll let my parents know you were asking about how they're doing."

"Thanks for that, Ribbon. Have a good one." It was strange, watching the girl leave the office again with a bit more pep in her step after everything that had happened, but Nah had no idea what she was supposed to do about any of it. She had no control over the bullies, no control over how the students at the school reacted to authority or their classmates, and there was ultimately very little she could do for Ribbon, except offer her a safe space to hang out when things got bad.

Something told her that things were going to stay bad for that girl through the end of the school year, but she couldn't be certain of that. Nah wasn't in a position to do much, but as long as she had her job at the school, she was going to try doing as much as she could. As she packed her things to head home for the weekend, her eyes fell on an envelope that she'd thought she'd thrown away and she had a sinking realization that perhaps there was something else she could do beyond anonymous reports and going to the administration that seemed ineffective in their power.

But how desperate was she about things to try reaching out to Maribelle about getting involved in some way? That was going to be the last resort, going to the actual president of the school board of the district to see what could be done about the rampant bullying taking place in the schools. But given everything that she knew about how the school was faring, it might've already been time to go through with the last resort option. "Ugh, I'll think about dealing with her next week," she declared, shaking her head to try and clear the idea from it. "I don't want to spend my time off thinking about one of the nastiest people I know."

If only Nah knew that she wasn't going to be able to escape dealing with difficult people over the weekend that easily.

---

It had been at Nowi's suggestion that Nah went out to the store that Saturday, because Nah was more than content with just sitting at home and doing nothing with her day. "Come on, I'll even let you keep the change if you go out for me," her mother had said, waving a fair amount of cash in Nah's face as they stood in the doorway to the younger woman's bedroom. "I just don't want to have to put pants on to go shopping. I'm sure you understand."

"I'll do it, if you promise me that you'll give me an actual list of what you need from the store, instead of telling me some vague details and expecting me to fill in the blanks." Nah reached her hand out for the money, but Nowi didn't relinquish it right away, as she hemmed and hawed over the idea of making a true shopping list. "Mom, seriously, I'm down to do this but you have to tell me what you actually need."

"Hold on, I'm thinking about what I need!" Huffing, Nowi actually pulled her hand back with the money in it, rocking back and forth as she thought for far longer than it seemed she should have needed to. Eventually, she held out the money once more. "Here, I've got it. You head to the store and I'll just text you the list once I know exactly what I need you to buy. This is for a very important occasion, after all."

Nah pinched the bridge of her nose as she took the money with her other hand, fully aware that she was setting herself up for being screwed over by not having enough cash to pay for the groceries. "Yeah, I know, you've only been telling me that you're hosting a manakete dinner tonight for weeks now. I honestly should've seen it coming that you'd need me to run to the store for this."

"Well, I'm glad you're doing it for me anyway. Be on the lookout for the list, I promise you'll get it by the time you get to the store!" Nowi gave her daughter a big smile before stepping away from the door, leaving Nah to sigh and begin getting herself ready to head out. She didn't like needing to be the errand-runner for her mother, but it was better than turning her down and getting talked negatively about at the manakete dinner that night.

As expected, when Nah arrived at the store she still hadn't gotten anything remotely close to a grocery list to follow, which irked her beyond belief. Several minutes of texting back and forth with her mother later and she received a few items to grab, with a note that she needed to wait for more because more would be coming. "Of course you can't even give me everything at once," Nah grumbled, as she grabbed a cart to carry what she knew would be a huge load of groceries when all was said and done. "I don't know why I expect anything to be easy when it comes to helping you out."

"Oh my gods, listen to you complaining for anyone who bothers to listen! Color me shocked that you're whining like a child yet again." The voice came from behind her, and the hair on the back of Nah's neck stood on end when she heard it. "Boo hoo, I have a mom that asks me to do things for her and doesn't demand it, I'm going to complain about you all day until someone chooses to pity me."

"I'm sorry, can I help you?" Looking back over her shoulder, Nah knew what she'd be seeing but she didn't want to believe it until her eyes confirmed it; the last time she'd actually spoken to Severa had been at the party she'd thrown nearly six months previously, and she'd been more than happy to keep that as their last interaction. "Aren't you supposed to be out of Ylisse or something? Why'd you come crawling back?"

Placing a hand over her chest as she gave a very fake, exaggerated gasp, Severa took a few large steps to be right at Nah's side as they came into the store one alongside the other. "You see, I'm doing something that you're too much of a self-centered bitch to take care of. Something that you couldn't even bother turning down like a decent person."

Her forward progress slowing to a halt, Nah did a double-take as she stared at Severa, expecting further elaboration but getting nothing but a smug smile. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, hesitant to say anything at all but knowing that she couldn't stay silent unless she wanted to open herself up to ridicule she didn't ask for. "As far as I'm aware, I've been more than open with every request that's been made of me lately."

"Right, right, because you're little miss perfect and ignore anything that isn't what you want to do, I get it." Rolling her eyes as she grabbed her phone and dramatically unlocked its screen, Severa pressed a few icons before carefully reading something, then looked over at Nah again with a sneer. "If that was the case, then I shouldn't have gotten this message begging me to come back to Ylisse to help plan something. But that's not the case, and I got that message, and I'm here doing the work you flat out refused to do."

"I mean, I'm over planning things, but I wasn't asked to plan anything?" Now Nah was beginning to doubt herself, wracking her brain for any idea of what Severa was yapping about. "Like, not even joking, the last time someone mentioned me planning something was in passing, and I highly doubt Lucina convinced you to come out here on a spur-of-the-moment trip because she wants me to plan a friend day with her."

"Tsk, always trying to act like you're so innocent when you know you've done something wrong." Tucking her phone back in her small purse, Severa's sneer didn't fade away, even as she began to walk faster than Nah and the cart were going. "I guess we really do like to delude ourselves into thinking we're perfect, don't we?"

The temptation to knock the cart into the back of Severa's legs was real, but Nah kept herself from doing it by breathing slowly and deeply, thinking about how bad it would look if she chose to act so aggressively. "I've never pretended to be perfect, so you can kindly stop projecting yourself onto me, thanks."

"I'm well aware that I'm far from perfect, but I'm at least a decent enough person to drop everything in my life to come plan a gods-damned baby shower for one of my best friends!" Severa's voice had raised as she said that, to the point that several other shoppers were now looking at the two women as they were staring at each other in front of the baking goods aisle at the store.

"I…I'm sorry, but I've never been asked to plan a baby shower in my life."

Her whole face scrunching as she heard that statement, Severa took in a very deep breath, eyes rolling as far back as they could until she exhaled slowly, deliberately. "Why are you standing here lying to me like this? At the very least, you can stop acting like I'm stupid and ignorant to the fact that you literally planned one last year."

Maybe it was in the wording that had been used, but Nah was not about to let herself be put down over a misunderstanding. "Technically it was just a party that had some baby shower-esque aspects to it, but I wasn't asked to do that. That was all on me, to help out some of my friends in a moment of need. And since then, I haven't been asked to plan anything even close to it again, and if I was asked, I would ask if they could find someone else because that was a lot of time and money I spent that I don't exactly have anymore."

"Okay, whatever, so that one was on you and your idea. Doesn't change the fact that you ignored being asked to plan another one, for someone just as deserving." Severa motioned toward her purse with a very pointed gesture, venom in the aggressive way her fingers moved. "How do you explain the messages I got about this, hm?"

"Someone's very mistaken about something, I think. I mean, I wasn't even aware that there was a need for anything right now. Surely that means something to you." Putting a smile on her face, Nah tried to move her cart away so that she could get on with her shopping trip and not have to deal with this nonsense any longer, but Severa wasn't about to let that happen.

The cart was grabbed in a very forceful motion, pulled forward before being pushed back until the handle hit Nah and made her gasp in surprise at the impact. "You're such a bad liar, and I hope you feel horrible about turning this down and making me do all the work. No wonder everyone hates you."

"No one hates me," Nah replied, slightly out of breath from how hard Severa had hit her with the cart. "I'm really not sure where all of this is coming from, I had no idea anyone wanted me to plan something for them and that's the truth."

"Just stop lying already!" Again the cart got pulled forward and pushed back, but Nah was expecting it the second time and tried to push it away from herself with all her might, leaving her and Severa entangled in a game of tug of war, until Severa gave in and let go, sending the cart forward instead. "I'm so glad that you're not going to be there, having to see your dumb face right now is making me sick."

As she collected herself and her cart, Nah looked at Severa completely confused. "Seeing as this is literally the first time I've heard about any sort of baby shower happening any time soon, I'm glad I'm not going to be there too, I think? What do you even want from me in all of this?"

There was a flicker of anger behind Severa's eyes at the question, as she strolled up to get right in front of Nah, looking down at her with her nose scrunched in disdain. "Your dumb girl act only works on people who aren't aware of it, you know," she spat, her head shaking as she locked eyes with Nah's utterly confused ones. "I've heard about you playing around with my sloppy seconds and I hope you know that he's way, way too good for you."

Nah's shoulders sank as she felt the weight of Severa's words bearing down on her, before she realized that she'd just been attacked for two completely different, unrelated things. "I'm not interested in whatever romance drama you want to throw at me, I want to know about this whole baby shower thing that I'm clearly not in the loop with!"

"We're already past that, you chose to play dumb and I'm not letting you think you're outsmarting me with it. Now we're onto the fact that you're a little bitch who thinks you're good enough to date someone leagues better than you." Leaning down, Severa got almost close enough to put her nose on Nah's before she stood up and backed away, flicking her long, dark hair behind her and hitting Nah with it. "Maybe if you weren't so stupid, none of this would have happened."

"I'm not…ugh, this is why everyone was happy you left in the first place!" The moment the words left Nah's lips, she covered her mouth and wished she hadn't lost her composure in that moment, but the damage was already done. Severa had frozen in place, slowly turning around to face Nah with the most threatening smile on her face; Nah knew that she was about to be chewed out, so she chose to double down instead of back off. "I meant that, no one missed you when you left and—"

"If no one missed me, then why did I get messages begging me to come back? Why have I been called almost nightly by people? Why am I standing here right now helping plan and organize a party for someone who you claim was happy when I left?" With every word, the anger and hatred building within Severa grew stronger, and it was clear that she was seconds away from lashing out in a spectacular way, so Nah did exactly what she needed to do in order to avoid making more of a scene.

She left her empty cart and walked quickly out of that store, choosing her dignity and her emotions over getting the last word in an argument with Severa. When she got to her car, she checked her phone for the first time in all of that and saw more of the grocery list from Nowi, as well as another message that she wished she'd seen beforehand. One that explained everything that was happening, that was prefaced with a huge apology that she was supposed to have been asked to help with planning something months before but it hadn't happened but it was thought that it had happened, so Severa had gotten dragged in and if she was encountered she was probably feeling spicy and would need to be shown that message to clear things up. "Too little too late on that one, Cynthia," Nah grumbled, not even bothering to respond to what she'd just gotten and choosing to delete it instead. "Now you can clean up the mess you just created for me, and we'll see if anything comes of it."

With that explained but not solved by any means, Nah chose to text her mother that the store was busy and that she was going across town to a different location instead, and took that route to avoid needing to see Severa again. Of course, as luck would have it she was getting called by someone before she pulled into the other store's parking lot, only making her time out on this simple errand even longer, but Nah was used to things never being easy for her. "Let me guess, Severa called you and chewed me out at you?" Nah asked upon answering, pulling into a parking spot at the back of the lot to make it easier to take the call.

"How'd you know?" Noire's soft voice replied, her sounding awfully calm for that being the situation. "She seemed pretty heated about you being a really nasty person, which I know can't be the truth. You're a bit weird, but not nasty by any means."

"Weirdos attract weirdos, I guess. What'd you tell her to get her to leave you alone?"

Noire took a second to answer, laughing before she spoke. "You know, I didn't actually say anything, as weird as that sounds. She was tearing into you and stopped when she got a text, then hung up before she said anything about it to me. On that note, were you aware that there's a baby shower next weekend that I'm supposed to be at?"

"I literally only learned about that when Severa started ripping me a new one for forcing her to plan it when it was apparently my job to do it to begin with. Clearly someone forgot to tell me that important detail. I don't even know why I would've been the one doing it in the first place," Nah continued, glancing from side to side as she spoke, as if Noire could even see her. "Pretty sure that the person who does that planning is supposed to be a close, dear friend of the person in need. Doesn't exactly make sense for it to be me on this one, because I'm definitely not that close to Cynthia at all."

"Plus, isn't the whole deal that someone's supposed to offer to plan it for you? Kind of rude to be throwing that on you when you didn't even ask in the first place." Noire sighed on her end of the phone, causing Nah to do the same in return. "I think that you just ended up in the middle of a huge misunderstanding that now I'm involved in too."

"Funny how that works, isn't it? Neither of us asked to be included in this and then—" A knock on her back window made Nah scream, dropping her phone onto her lap and audibly hearing a similar scream come from Noire on the other side. She couldn't hear any responses, but Nah kept talking anyway. "—someone's trying to get my attention from outside my car! Noire, stay on the phone with me in case they shoot me or something!"

Her heart racing, Nah looked into her backseat, then out the back windshield, seeing that, of all the people in all of the places she could run into them, Morgan was standing there, his face pressed against the glass and cupped by his hands. "Morgan?" she yelled, picking her phone back up and breathing heavily into the receiver. "Noire, I think that's Morgan out there. I'm nowhere near his house, why's he literally staring into my car?"

"I'm not a mind reader, I can't tell you what his thoughts are!" Noire replied, sounding a lot less level-headed than she had been prior to the screaming. "I'll stick around on the call if you want to go ask him yourself, promise."

As if Nah's shopping trip couldn't have gotten any worse, she was now having to deal with a friend that she actually did enjoy the presence of. With her heart still pounding in her chest and her breath coming out heavy, she turned the car off and opened the door, hearing Morgan call her name as she stepped outside. "I knew it was you!" he announced, coming around the car to meet her on the side, only for her to hold her free hand out to keep him at bay. "H-hey now, why're you so hostile?"

"Do you not realize how absolutely terrifying it is to have someone come banging on the back of your car when you've stopped to take a call?" Nah asked him, hearing Noire confusedly ask why she was being asked that question on the other end of said call. "Not you, Noire, I'm talking to Morgan."

"You've got Noire on the phone? Can you tell her that I need Laurent to message me back about something related to our campaign?"

"I can hear him, tell him I can do that!"

Closing her eyes in frustration at how absolutely stupid the situation had become, Nah rushed a goodbye into the phone before hanging up on Noire, so that she could focus entirely on Morgan. "Sorry, but she said that you need to handle that yourself. And handle it somewhere that isn't the creepy back part of a parking lot!"

"Noire definitely didn't say any of that." Morgan blinked a few times at Nah, watching as she tried to make herself bigger and more intimidating despite him seemingly having done nothing wrong in his perspective. "But whatever, I can try reaching out to Laurent again, I just know that he's been really itching to get some development on Plume, but I kind of need him to let me know what he's been imagining before I plan anything."

With her still-outstretched hand, Nah raised it and mimed grabbing her friend's lips and shutting them tightly to get him to recognize that he needed to shut up. "Morgan. Why are you here?"

"I'm here because I was down the road at the library, got hungry and decided I was going to grab some snacks, then walked over here and saw you pull in and thought I could come say hey. Is there a problem with that?" The innocence that Morgan spoke with made it obvious that he was telling the truth, and Nah was thankful at the very least that he wasn't trying to deceive her in any way. "Oh, that reminds me, don't go to the library looking for books on manakete history, they're all checked out and on loan for months now."

Nah nodded slowly, her mind trying to process why that was something Morgan was doing to begin with. "Thanks, I'll keep that tucked away in my—wait!" As quickly as she could, Nah rushed unlocking her car and dove inside, sitting in her seat as she closed the door and rolled down the window before grabbing the dragon statue that had appeared inside mysteriously. She held that up and out the window, hearing Morgan gasp at the sight. "Does this belong to you?" she asked, realizing it was the perfect opportunity to address that problem. "Because it sure doesn't belong to me."

"How'd that end up with you? I bought that to be a figure in our campaign in the future, since enemy dragons are part of the name of the game and I'm not letting you take those from everyone." Making grabby hands toward the dragon statue, Morgan realized something wasn't right when Nah wasn't relinquishing it to him immediately. "Uh, Nah? Dinah? Something the matter?"

"Mom says that this kind of statue isn't a good omen for manaketes. Something about them being used as part of anti-Naga propaganda." Nah, admittedly, should have looked into matters further than her mother's word, given that Nowi was apt to make things up just to sound smarter, but she knew the consequences of searching manakete-related terms online. There could only be so many "surprise" visits to the house from Lady Tiki before someone grew wise to the reality of the situation. "But I don't know how it ended up here, in my car, of all the places in the world."

Morgan pursed his lips together, his face morphing into a display of deep thought before he relaxed entirely and shrugged, continuing to make the grabby hands at the statue he still wasn't being given. "You know, you spend so much time in my house that it could've been slipped into your car as a prank by one of our friends," he said, an answer that wasn't satisfying or realistic to Nah. "That, or it could've just ended up in your things one day when you were leaving."

"Nice try, but I know that you have to have been the one to put it there. I'm pretty sure it happened when I went to pick you up from being stranded in the middle of actual nowhere. Ring a bell, Morgan?" She waited for him to admit she was right, but the reaction she got instead was a bit more unexpected-he lunged at her window and tried to take the statue from her, with a ferocity that she'd never seen before.

Thankfully, being that she was in her car still and he wasn't, there wasn't much he could do when she instinctively threw the statue into her passenger's seat and stared blankly at Morgan and how feral he'd just gotten over it. "That's mine, give it back!" he hissed, as she rolled up her window to where there was a mere crack at the top. "Dinah, you're being so unfair right now!"

"And you're acting like a literal child over it. Tell me the truth about how it got into my car, and maybe I'll give it back to you."

The sound of Morgan's nails scratching against the window was grating to Nah's ears, but she endured it as long as he kept going, as she waited for him to wizen up to her game. Eventually, he stepped back, took a deep breath, and hung his head. "Okay, you got me. I bought it when I was out with Aversa, she convinced me to because she thought it looked pretty cool and was fitting for our game. That's all. Can I have it back now?"

"One second," Nah told him, as she gingerly reached over to grab the dragon statue once again, shuddering at the feel of it under her palm now that she knew the truth behind how it had come into her friend's possession. "You said that she told you to buy it. Did she mention anything about it and how it relates to manaketes?"

"She might have, yeah, and that was when I knew she was bad news and I never should've met up with her in the first place. I told her that I'm not using it for religious purposes and that it's just for our game, and I'm standing by that as the truth. As my truth." Lifting his head to see that Nah was opening her window to pass the statue off to him, Morgan nearly clapped in giddiness before taking what was his back into his possession. "Thanks for not just throwing it out when you had the chance, Nah. I promise you're going to see this bad boy show up in our campaign eventually."

"Let's hope I miss that session…" she muttered, rolling her window back up to fully closed as she watched Morgan wave a farewell at her before continuing walking on his way. She sat in her silent car for several minutes, just processing the bizarre chain of events that had just taken place. For how large of a city Ylisstol was, it was almost unheard of to run into someone out in the wild like that, especially in a place neither of them necessarily were meant to be at any time. She could excuse running into Severa at the other store, if only just a little, but having Morgan approach her car when she was parked at an unfamiliar store in the far back of the lot? That was the sign of divine intervention.

And if Naga was currently intervening in her life to get her to hand off a potentially-cursed statue to its rightful owner, she wasn't going to complain. That thing had given her the creeps since she'd first found it in her car, and she was thankful that it was gone. Of course, Morgan's behavior before getting it back had a lot more red flags going up around it, but she was focusing on being rid of the statue right then, not worrying about what had possessed her friend to act so weird.

After assuring herself that everything would be fine if she didn't dwell on it, she started her car and moved closer to the store's entrance, running inside the building and buying everything that Nowi had sent her on the never-ending grocery list, finding that her mother's list of needs for her dinner was a lot longer than actually anticipated. It was a lot of money to drop on something she hadn't been expecting to pay for, and Nah knew that there wasn't enough in what she'd been given to cover it all, which meant that, yet again, she was shouldering costs for her mother. Not that she could, or would, say anything about it when she got home with all the groceries, Nowi chiding her for taking so long but thanking her that she'd only bought what was necessary and seemingly spent all of the money she'd been allotted for the task.

"If I didn't know any better," Nowi said, as she looked over the sheer amount of things that Nah had bought, "I'd say that you spent at least double what I gave you in the first place."

"Wouldn't say double, exactly, but you're on the right track," Nah grumbled under her breath, catching her mother's ear with some of her muttered words before having to walk them right back. "It wasn't that much more, not anything unrealistic for me to have to cover for you. You did ask me to buy a lot more than expected, after all."

Nowi nodded, smiling at her daughter. "That's for sure, but every time I thought the list was done, someone would call or text me asking to make something else and I couldn't turn them down. The last thing we need is for Lady Tiki to come in and be disappointed that we don't have everything that she and her friends asked for."

"Right, totally get that." Just hearing Lady Tiki's name after what had happened earlier made a knot form in Nah's stomach, and she knew that she didn't want to be anywhere near the house when the manakete dinner took place. Unfortunately, she knew that she would be there for the whole thing, because her mother wanted to keep up appearances and Nah had to be a huge part of that game. "I'm going to head up to my room and get some work done while you cook, just let me know when you need me."

"Sure thing. Thanks again for doing the shopping for me!" For being someone who was going to be working on preparing a dinner for the foreseeable future, it was nice to hear that Nowi was keeping her spirits high. That didn't really matter to Nah, though, as she went up the stairs and into her bedroom, closing the door tightly behind her and moving furniture in front of it to keep it locked from the inside. Work wasn't actually her intention, because she needed to get her mind off of real-world matters for a little bit, and the last thing Nah needed was for her mother to come barging in for various reasons.

This time, she made the wise choice to silence her phone before pulling out her bag of toys from under her bed, eliminating the problem from last time. Nah knew she had at least half an hour to herself at minimum, before Nowi was up there trying to get her help with making dinner, and she was going to relish every single moment of alone time she could.