Nah woke up the next morning to a barrage of messages from Noire begging her to call her so they could talk about things, all sent at various overnight hours. That didn't come as a surprise to her in the slightest, but it should've been common knowledge that she'd be asleep for work and wouldn't be responding to them. So, despite knowing that giving an unwanted answer was as bad as giving no answer at all, she replied to them saying they could talk after work, and hoped that'd be enough to keep Noire from spiraling downward in her attempts to figure out what had happened.

Naturally, the previous night's twists and turns stayed heavy on Nah's mind all day when she was trying to get work done, and even when she was working one-on-one with children she couldn't stop thinking about the betrayal she'd experienced. No one should ever have gone through the manipulation that she'd experienced, but even with the evidence she had, she didn't want to outright blame Morgan for what he'd done. That wasn't the goofy, fun guy she was friends with, and she had a sinking suspicion that she knew who there was to blame for the change in behavior and the poor decision making. Was she going to call him out on that? Of course not, that would be making an assumption that could backfire on her entirely. She was merely going to let things simmer while she was out of town and see how the situation was when she got home.

Once she had wrapped up work for the day, she got out of that school building as fast as she could and went to sit in her car. Making that call to Noire wasn't possible inside the school, and it was somehow even less possible to make it if she went home, so sitting in the car was the only place that Nah felt safe enough to call her friend and talk about things. "You really should've done this way sooner," Noire chided upon answering her phone. "This has been weighing on me heavily all day!"

"I'm sorry for having a job and a normal sleep schedule?" Nah replied, blinking at her phone screen in surprise at how things were already being expressed. "I'm talking to you about it at the earliest possible time, trust me."

"You let him kiss you like that, Nah, and I had to just watch it happen!" She could hear Noire's voice reaching higher registers as she grew more agitated, and Nah began to brace herself for the oncoming meltdown. "You're super lucky that no one else took the bait and showed up into that call, because if anyone else had seen it, they'd…you know, they'd know what he did to you. Which wasn't okay."

"Was there sound on our end?" Realizing that the way she was being told matters already answered her question, Nah hoped that she wasn't making a nasty assumption on that point. "Like, could you hear what was being said?"

Noire hummed for a second. "I don't actually know if there was sound, I had my speakers off because I was listening to Laurent talk about something. He knows about all this, by the way. As if I was going to keep this from him."

"Laurent's trustworthy, I know he's going to do the right thing with this information." It was good that Noire hadn't heard what was said, she hadn't heard them discussing their plans and how the activities were a trial run—something that was never going to be acted upon again, no matter how much Nah had thought she'd wanted it. "Look, I'm glad that if anyone had to see this happen, it was you, because you're a great friend and you've got my back here. Morgan…more or less forced himself onto me in that situation, and thank Naga that he didn't go any further than he did."

"He was touching your chest, I saw that much." Humming again, it was clear that Noire was thinking about something on her end of the phone. "I also am pretty sure he was slipping you some tongue, which…ew? I can't imagine having his tongue anywhere near my mouth."

"You also already have a serious boyfriend, you shouldn't be imagining having anyone else's tongue in your mouth." At once, Nah became hyper-aware of her own tongue in her mouth, and she remembered how it had felt when it wasn't the only one in there, a strange sensation she honestly had been mixed on until after the fact. "But, okay, he clearly had some reason for why he wanted to show everyone what he planned to do to me there in his room. Do we talk to him about this? I don't know if I want to ever bring it up."

There was a moment of silence, where Noire seemed to be thinking about what they should do, before she gasped and said, "I remember something my mother mentioned one of the last times I was around her. It was something about Grima and something about people's worship of the Fell Dragon and something about strange behavior because of it."

"It's almost definitely not related to this," Nah assured her, knowing full well that Morgan's involvement with people who worshipped the Fell Dragon was a big part of what had happened. "I'm sure your mother was just spewing nonsense, like she usually does."

"I sure hope that's the case, from what I understand that whole religion is super nasty and not anything I'd want any part of." Noire sighed, before the distinct sound of her phone falling and hitting the floor brought an end to the call, the last noise Nah heard being Noire beginning to scream in panic at what she'd done.

With no phone call to distract her, Nah set off for home, driving slowly to buy herself as much time as she could before she arrived at the house. The fact that this most likely had to do with her friend falling into the worshipping of the Fell Dragon was not one she was going to ignore, and she was kicking herself for thinking that she could use him to satiate some of her carnal desires. She should've seen it coming that he was going to manipulate the situation in some way, but she'd been so desperate on finding that connection that she'd hoped he'd take the high road. Now there was the fear that he'd recorded what he'd shown on camera, because that would be damning evidence that she was doing things she shouldn't have been, and with someone that she wasn't exactly supposed to be chummy with.

Nah came to a stop at a light, and once her car was fully stopped she leaned forward and put her head on the steering wheel. "If there's a video of all that, and it gets to Lady Tiki, she's going to probably remove me from the manakete church forever, if it doesn't outright kill her on the spot. And if she dies because I was out here sucking face with a guy who worships the Fell Dragon, then my parents are definitely going to kick me out of the house. And if that happens…ugh, I don't even know what I'd do."

It was hard not to think about worst-case scenarios with what had happened, but Nah knew that she had something almost as horrifying to tend to that evening, and she couldn't spend all of her energy planning how to proceed in one situation when she needed to deal with one of her least favorite people. When she got home, she went inside and straight to her room, barely greeting her mother with a hello before she was running up the stairs. Naturally, Nowi saw this and assumed something was wrong, so she came up after and was soon banging on Nah's door, while Nah was inside changing from her work clothes to something a bit more formal. "Open up, you're not hiding anything from your mother under her roof!" Nowi called between her knocks. "I'm not letting you keep secrets from me!"

Nah at least had the decency to make sure she was modestly covered before she opened the door, nearly getting knocked in the face with a flying fist. "Mom, what's the problem? I've got plans tonight, I can't exactly waste time watching movies with you right now."

"Plans?" Nowi repeated, lowering her hand now that she didn't need to make a scene any longer. "But it's Wednesday, you don't usually have plans on Wednesdays, do you?"

"Not usually, but this is a special occasion. I'm honestly surprised that you didn't hear about it at work, given who typically shows up there to give you an earful about me." Nah began to close her door, but Nowi reached out and held it in place, so that it remained partially cracked. "Seriously, Mom, I need to get ready."

"What kind of plans have my little girl choosing them over spending quality time with me?"

Sighing, Nah peeked out the crack of the door at her mother. "The kind of plans that an adult woman makes every once in a while. Why can't you let me have this one? I'm spending my break from work with you next week, aren't I? Isn't that enough for you?"

It might have been something with Nah's annoyed tone, but her questions were enough to get Nowi to let go of the door and back away, her eyebrows furrowed slightly as she mouthed what she'd just heard to herself. Nah took that opportunity to close her door and resume changing, all while her mother was on the other side, seemingly coming to an acceptance that she couldn't always hover like she'd been. Of course, that didn't mean anything when she was still standing there, watching like a hawk, when Nah came out of her room about ten minutes later. "I've decided that you're right, and that I should let you have this one, Dinah."

"Oh, here we go." Nah looked at her mother, who had her hands pressed together in front of her mouth as if she was about to lay down something serious. "What's the catch?"

"There's no catch at all," Nowi insisted, but the cracking of her voice was enough to tell that she was restraining herself. "I want my little girl to be happy, and if that means going out and having plans two nights in a row, then that's exactly what that means. I'll just be here waiting for the next time you can make the time for me."

Her eye twitching slightly, there were many things Nah wanted to say in that moment, but she chose not to say any of the more incendiary ones. Instead, she took in a deep breath, steadied herself, and said, "Mom, this was a last-minute dinner invite with a friend and their family, it's not like I'm rushing out to go do drugs or have wild, reckless sex. You can drop the theatrics and remember that I'm a grown adult that's allowed to do my own things on my own time. We'll have plenty of time to sit around and watch movies another night, maybe even tomorrow night. I really doubt I'll have plans like this come up again."

"You better not be going out there to do nasty things with people you barely know." Naturally it was one aspect of the whole statement that Nowi got fixated on, but Nah knew that she should probably have not said that part. "I'll be waiting for you here, on the couch, expecting you back at a decent time. If it's nearly midnight and you're not home, I'm—"

"Mom, I work in the morning."

"—right, then, if it's ten o'clock and you're not home, I'm calling you until I get a straight answer about where you are." Nowi gestured with her still-pressed hands, trying to drive her point home. "So don't be late, and don't be stupid!" One of those warnings would've been a lot more relevant the previous night, although it was fairly stupid to even agree to going to a dinner that Maribelle was going to be at in the first place. Nah was hopeful that, whatever the reason for the meal was, it wasn't going to end up in a situation where she was getting put down constantly for merely existing.

When she got out to her car, she checked the only message she'd gotten that day that wasn't from Noire, it being one from Brady giving her a time and a location for them to meet. Nah had already done the part of looking up the directions to the particular restaurant earlier in the day, but she was still not fully convinced she could get there without assistance, so turning on the map and having it tell her where to go was the best option. That didn't exactly help her drive safely, as there were several moments where it needed her to make a turn almost immediately after getting onto a road and she'd be forced to veer wildly across traffic, but she got there in one piece and that was what was most important.

The place was on the higher end of casual, to the point that Nah almost felt like she was underdressed for the occasion; this worry was only amplified when she saw people exiting from the restaurant's ornately-carved doors and they were wearing fine clothing that she could only fantasize about. "I probably should've been a bit better about checking the dress code for the evening," she said as she climbed out of her car, hoping that her nice blouse and pleated skirt wouldn't cause her to immediately be turned away upon entry.

"Whoa, look at you!" she heard Brady call from across the parking lot, and she turned to see him jogging over to meet her, wearing something that had clearly been sitting at the bottom of a laundry basket for some time, based on all its wrinkles. "Here I was, thinkin' that I should've warned ya about the kind of place this is, but it seems you caught on without my help. That's good."

"I mean, you invited me to dinner with your mother and I couldn't help but assume that it'd end up being some sort of formal meal like this. I just…think that maybe I'm not formal enough. Should I go home and change?" It wasn't like Nah would exactly have anything at home to change into, minus a pair of slacks and perhaps some accessories to spice up her choice of top, but she wanted the offer to be made regardless. "This isn't going to cause a problem for us, right?"

Brady snorted, "The place looks a hell of a lot fancier than it actually is. Ma likes it because it's got the snooty, rich vibe but it's only a fraction of the cost to get in and dine." He paused, looking back over his shoulder, before shaking his head. "Ma's runnin' late, by the way. She said she'll be here in fifteen or so."

"How'd she end up getting to be that late to her own dinner?"

Freezing at the question, Brady took a second to process how to answer it before he said anything. "Well, you see, she might've forgotten that she said tonight and was out runnin' errands after work, then when I called her askin' her if she was gonna be stoppin' by home or if I should just leave without her, she was surprised that she'd forgotten in the first place. So she had to rush back and get herself ready, and she was just gettin' started with that when I left to get over here. But I had somewhere to stop on my way, so it's kind of a miracle that I still got here before you."

"You had to stop somewhere? Am I allowed to know where?" Nah wasn't asking because she actually wanted to know, but rather just to keep the conversation going as they headed to the front of the restaurant. "Or is that one of your big secrets you're going to carry with you for as long as you live?"

"Eh, I got asked to swing by the store and I wasn't gonna save that for after dinner. Turns out, it's pretty easy to be able to walk in somewhere and buy fancy pens, if you're dressed as nice as I am. Bet it would've been a lot harder if I was lookin' my normal." Brady reached the doors first, opening one with a small grunt at how heavy it was to pull, but Nah was thankful that she wasn't having to use her abnormally small size to try and hoist the thing open herself. He followed her in and let the door come to a close behind them both, a lot quieter than one would've thought something so heavy would be. "Anyway, that's an errand done and I guess we can get our table, even if Ma's not here."

Nah looked around the foyer of the restaurant, in awe of how formal the place looked and how she'd never been inside somewhere quite so fancy in her life, and it took Brady making the important part of his statement again for her to hear him. "Oh, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. She's bound to think that's what we've done, anyway."

The wait staff at the restaurant looked just as formal as the décor did, and everyone standing around at the front seemed to sneer when they saw the two actually coming closer. All attitudes changed when Brady said what name they were there under, as the employees began to argue over who was going to take them to their table. "Uh, if none of ya can decide who's going to do it, I know where it is that Ma likes to sit. I can lead us back, if you'd like?"

There was something about the audacity it took for a guest to offer to seat themselves that got the wait staff to stop fighting and send someone with menus to lead the pair to their table, delicately set for three with wine glasses at each place setting and an iced bottle of wine in the middle. Brady did the gentlemanly thing and drew Nah's chair for her, her thanking him as she took a seat and still glanced around at the opulent setting she now found herself in. This was completely out of the realm of realistic possibilities for her to be there, and yet there she was, sitting at a table like she belonged. "What do we do now?" she asked, her voice merely a whisper. "Do we just sit and wait?"

"They won't come take our orders without Ma present, so yeah, we just sit and wait. We could have a glass of wine while we wait, though." One of Brady's hands reached toward the bottle in the middle, but when he saw Nah's face contort in disgust he retracted it with an awkward chuckle. "Yeah, good point. I don't even think I could open it without someone helpin' me out."

"What, you're not going to break it to get into it?" Raising her voice a little, Nah felt like she was doing the right amount of teasing, but then she saw Brady shrink down in his seat, shoulders falling forward. "That was a joke, Brady, you know I wouldn't think that you'd do that sort of thing."

"You wouldn't think it, but Ma would. Ma's still out here thinkin' I'm some lowlife trash who can't clean up to save his life." His shoulders still sagging, Brady began to curl himself up into a bit of a ball there at the table, but stopped when his head almost landed on his already-there plate. "I don't even know what her goal with tonight's dinner is, but—"

"Sit up at once, Brady, you're attracting all sorts of attention you don't want or deserve." Making her presence known with such a sharp statement, Maribelle slid into the chair with the third place setting, giving her fakest smile in Nah's direction as she did. "As for you, I take it that they had to turn you away a time or two before you were finally allowed in?"

"What makes you guess that?" Nah asked in return, feeling the need to remind herself that she couldn't be starting an argument there in such a formal place. "Because I'll have you know that I had zero issues at all getting inside. I'm dressed perfectly acceptably, no thanks to you."

"When I told Brady that he could invite one friend along for dinner, I forgot that you would be the only logical choice, for whatever reason." Maribelle waved a dismissive hand in Nah's direction, only to use that same hand to snap at her son, as he wasn't moving fast enough for her liking. "Surely he has some other friends that are a bit more palatable, somewhere."

There wasn't enough money in the world to get Nah to speak her mind on that statement, because she didn't want to have to put any of Brady's friends down to make her point. Instead, she merely responded, "All of his 'better' friends either no longer live in Ylisse or have families to tend to. He didn't have anyone other than me to ask."

"I didn't want to ask anyone but Nah," Brady pointed out, his voice mumble-like as he tried to not make eye contact with his mother. "I considered askin' Laurent if he was interested but I didn't wanna have to deal with him ramblin' about the store all night, so I went with my first, original choice. The choice I'd told you I was makin' when you first told me about the dinner."

"I would have much preferred if Laurent were able to be here over this one, Brady dearest." Maribelle's disgust of Nah made a lot of sense, when she really thought about it, but to those unaware of their troubled history it did seem like she was taking cheap shots at the woman. "At least he has the manners and decency to exist in an appropriate manner. Could use a bit of work on his acceptance of religion, but…not everyone can be perfect."

At the mention of religion, Nah's stomach tensed up. "I'm literally a manakete who attends the church of Naga pretty regularly, doesn't that count for something?"

"Manakete church is a bit different, as far as I understand it's less about worshipping Naga and more about worshipping whoever you have in charge. Maybe if you came to a sermon with me, you'd understand." Winking, as if she'd just made an offer that couldn't be refused, Maribelle continued, "But I suppose, at the end of the day, you having some sort of religion in your life makes you better than most of the riffraff that my son associates himself with." At her pointed last words, Brady let out what was undeniably a whimper, which only made Nah wish she didn't have the restraint to keep herself from chewing Maribelle out for what she was saying.

Maybe it was for the best that she'd accepted the dinner offer, because it meant that Brady wasn't going to have to suffer alone. "I mean, I guess I could try to make it to one of your church's sermons, but I doubt that the people in charge are going to appreciate one of Naga's chosen manaketes strolling in like she belongs there."

"What was that?" Maribelle asked, her eyes narrowing in Nah's direction. "Speak up, Dinah, if you want to be heard you need to use your voice appropriately."

"I said, the people in charge at your church might not like it when one of Naga's favorites decides to show up. I don't mean to brag, but I'm basically being groomed as the successor to my church once Lady Tiki steps down." While not completely accurate, it was flavored with just enough of the truth that Nah didn't feel blasphemous making such a claim. "So maybe, instead of me going to your church, you can come to mine and see how much better it is to be a manakete."

Salvation in the form of their server approaching the table came to Nah's rescue after that statement, and she got to relish in the fact that she'd gotten the final word on the matter, at least temporarily. There was no way at all she would actually invite Maribelle to her church, given that she barely attended of her own choosing to begin with, but she also had zero interest in tagging along with her to see what it was like outside of manakete circles. The server didn't even seem to notice that he'd come in right in the middle of a spat, going through the daily specials and drink menu as he was paid to do without batting an eyelash at the animosity he'd stumbled into. Once he was gone, Nah figured that Maribelle would come back swinging at her, but she was met with silence.

Absolute, sweet silence.

After about a minute, Nah realized that the silence wasn't actually as nice as she'd hoped it would be, but she didn't know what to do in order to fill the absence of conversation. She wished she was just about anywhere but at the table, or at the very least, with anyone other than Maribelle, but she'd taken the invitation knowing that Brady had been transparent about his mother being there in the first place. All she could do was hope that something would come up that would either get her away from that restaurant as fast as she could go, or make the night feel more bearable.

"I suppose I should come clean about something," Maribelle said with a heavy sigh, shaking her head in Nah's direction, almost like she'd been thinking far too long on their religion conversation. "It involves an aspect of my treatment of you, Dinah."

Biting her tongue to keep from correcting the full name usage, Nah nodded at her. "Go on, I'm listening. All ears, so they say."

Maribelle blinked at Nah a few times, looking visibly uncomfortable as she thought about what she was going to tell her. "Right, well, I want to preface this by saying that my invitation for you to join us at dinner this evening, whether it was explicitly my idea or not, was not done with the school board and their agenda in mind. In fact, having you here allows for me to do something that I know they would all disagree with." She reached a hand toward Nah, as if she was trying to offer her something, but when Nah went to accept the gift she had her whole hand grabbed instead. "The district has been blessed this school year to have you on staff."

"That's…a different tune than what you were singing last time we talked about this sort of thing." Already in shock at how her hand was being held, Nah didn't know what else to say without coming off as immediately trusting of the praise. "Did someone bring something up at one of your board meetings that made you realize my importance, or…?"

"No, this is a statement I am making on my own, without their influence or direction. After all, what did I just say about this invitation being without their agenda in mind?" Maribelle gave a slightly annoyed eye-roll at Nah, before patting the top of her hand and laughing. "But if they had told me to say something to you, you'd be hearing the same sort of praises, because the special education programs at the schools you have been working with have flourished with your support this school year. Parents of struggling students are amazed at the growth that their children have been making, in academics and behavior both."

Nah inhaled deeply, waiting for the shoe to drop so that she could react in kind, but Maribelle continued talking about positives. "Not only that, but the support staff that are at the schools full-time have been asking for their administrations to pull strings and get you to stay at their campus longer, which is impossible because you can't be at four schools at once. But that means that there is a need to hire more impossibly brilliant minds such as yours, and make your role a full-time one at each school."

"Right, because that's definitely what you were saying to me last time you talked to me about my job." Now Nah was beginning to grow suspicious of Maribelle's motivation for this conversation, because if she wasn't talking on behalf of the overall board, that meant there was some sort of personal reason for things. "So, are you about to break into why that's not a plausible idea and why I'm just going to continue doing what I'm doing until I quit or retire, whichever one comes first?"

That was when Maribelle glanced in Brady's direction, her son looking at her with the same sort of suspicion that Nah was giving. "Dearest, what have you told Dinah here about the specifics about my job?"

"Uh, you're a lawyer and you do a lot of work with divorces and money." Brady shrugged, not sure what else he needed to say. "I've known Nah for so long that I've probably told her more than that, but that's all I've got for ya right now, sorry Ma."

"That is enough, I suppose, for me to get my point across." Her eyes sliding back onto Nah, Maribelle put a very genuine smile on her face for a few seconds, before it shifted to one that was clearly angling to butter her up. "You see, when I am knee-deep in divorce cases, there are often children involved. Outside of money or cheating, issues involving children seem to be a major reason for these petitions for divorce, and I have been thinking a lot lately about how helpful it would be to get these children time with someone so skilled in breaking down barriers around their minds."

"I'm not qualified for anything in the legal world," Nah quickly interjected, finally ripping her hand out of Maribelle's. "Not only that, but I'm happy working with these struggling students in school, I don't want to be someone kids learn to resent because they're seeing me in courtrooms."

"But think of the lives you can change, by working in my law firm as a child specialist. You could prevent divorces, by reaching out to the children and giving them tools to help with whatever issues they are having in school or at home." With her hands now free, Maribelle clasped them together in a position that made her look like she was begging Nah to consider her offer. "I know that you aren't qualified for this, and that is something that I have spoken to the firm about, and they are willing to make things work if you're interested."

"What do you mean, they're willing to make things work? That's several more years of school and I don't make enough money to pay for that. Nor do I have the time to take on that kind of schooling while working." Nah paused, realizing that she had an idea of what Maribelle meant by what she'd said, but it seemed so outlandish that it just didn't make a lick of sense to her. "I'm sorry, but I'm where I'm meant to be."

"Yeah, what gives with all this, Ma? Nah's happy with her job, you can't just start flingin' around offers to get her something bigger!" Brady reached toward his mother, as if he was about to try shaking sense into her, but just as his hand brushed her arm, the server reappeared with drinks and asking if they needed more time with the menu or they were ready to make their order. At once, the whole conversation came to a stand-still, as they rushed through their orders, even though none of them had actually thought through it in the slightest.

Once the server was gone again, Maribelle picked the conversation back up like it hadn't been interrupted. "Well, perhaps I am merely thinking about making the kind of people my son chooses to associate himself with a bit higher quality," she said, giving Brady a split-second glare before looking straight at Nah once more. "Dinah, believe me when I say that I do not make this offer lightly, and I do not expect you to have an answer for it right away, but my law firm is offering to fund your education if you will come into our office upon completion of your degree and begin working to keep families from fracturing."

All of the air in Nah's lungs rushed out, and she felt herself struggling to breathe with how much of a shock that offer gave her. Maribelle seemed so sincere with everything, which didn't erase a moment of her mistreatment and belittling beforehand, but it did paint her in a much more caring light. "I…I really don't know if I can do that," she mumbled, breaking her eye contact with Maribelle to keep herself from getting guilt-tripped into agreeing to do something she didn't want to do. "It's a lovely offer, but my place is in the schools."

"Please, take time to think it over. This offer will not be expiring anytime soon, so you do not have to make your decision right now." Beaming, Maribelle let her words linger in the air a moment, before she was turning toward Brady once again. "And do note," she said toward her son, "that if Dinah accepts this offer, it renders her ineligible to become anything more than friends with you."

Brady's face scrunched at the statement, before he shook his head. "That's fine, she's just a friend anyway so there's no reason to be thinkin' that might change."

The conflicting feelings racing through Nah's body at the offer she'd been given only grew more agitated at hearing that come from Brady's mouth. While she hadn't forgotten about what had happened that night, where they'd agreed they'd marry each other if they were still single at thirty, it seemed that he wasn't as on-board with that arrangement as she'd been. "It's just that…well, Brady dearest, you're starting to get to that age where guys are typically working on finding the love of their life, and you never seem to be around anyone eligible except…this one."

"Ma, you have to trust me when I say that she's just a friend." He looked at Nah, giving her a knowing smile that she knew the story behind. "You don't have to worry that I'd be datin' her, when she's got her heart set on someone else."

Either Morgan had sent him the video, or Noire had told him about it, and both of those options were terrifying to Nah. "E-excuse me, I'll be right back," she stammered, jumping up from her seat and running toward the front door of the restaurant, earning gazes from everyone she passed in her rush. When she got outside, she considered just getting in her car and driving away into the night, but she couldn't do that, not to someone who'd just offered her a brand-new career path. "Who spilled to Brady that I was considering getting with Morgan until he went off the deep-end last night?" she muttered to herself, pulling out her phone and texting Noire to see if it was her.

When she got a message back in all capital letters insisting that she hadn't told a soul, outside of Laurent but he hadn't been paying attention when it was said, Nah groaned as she leaned against the building's exterior. You dummy, he's always paying attention, and he probably went right to Brady about it. Because Brady's here right now, telling his mother about how I'm interested in someone else.

Immediately after sending that message, Nah realized that she'd just ratted herself out with her feelings about Brady, and she had to rectify that problem before assumptions got made. Not that I'm interested in HIM, you know? But he knows about me having been testing the waters with Morgan, somehow.

Noire's response was a laughing emoji followed with, Of course he knows, the whole table's known for weeks now. You've been getting freakishly close to that weirdo and everyone knows that it's been romantic.

Well, if it was just a case of everyone picking up on the vibes, then Nah couldn't stress out too much about things. She thanked Noire for the sudden interruption and quick responses, then slunk back in to the table, where it seemed Maribelle and Brady had gotten into an argument in her absence. "Oh, good, now it's awkward for everyone," she whispered, seeing that the mother and son were not even looking in the other's general direction. "My favorite kind of meal to be a part of."

"Dinah, please explain to my foolish son, right now, that he would be making a mistake if he permanently wrote you off as nothing more than a friend," Maribelle said immediately upon Nah's return to the table, her not even fully sitting back down before the statement was made. "While you are far from perfect and could use a lot of work, you show promise and could make for a suitable—"

"Ma, stop it! Nah, explain to my mother that it's not cool to try playin' matchmaker for her child, especially with someone who's already got her eye on someone else!" Brady was a lot more heated about things, and while it would have been fun to chime in with her own perspective of matters, Nah refused to entertain either of them, and merely stared at them both in silence until the waiter came back with their food.

If the silence earlier in the evening had been sweet to start, this one only grew sweeter as the two realized that they weren't going to get Nah to play their game. Sure enough, as soon as dinner had been served and eaten, in the time waiting for the check that could have been used to try swaying her in either direction, they all sat awkwardly at the table, her looking between them both while they couldn't bare to look at each other. Eventually, Maribelle broke the silence to merely let Nah know that dinner was covered and that she was free to leave, but that she "really should consider the job offer and make a decision whenever she felt ready to do so," something that Nah wasn't even going to worry with for a while.

She rose from the table without a word, merely waving farewell to the two before going out to her car. When she got behind the wheel, she pulled her phone out just to check it, and the single message she had from Brady let her know that what he'd been doing inside was an act to get under his mother's skin. In a continuation of a long-passed conversation, he'd sent her one number: 29?

Make it 28 and I'm down, she replied, setting her phone in the passenger's seat and beginning to drive home. Perhaps he wasn't as convinced of some hypothetical relationship between her and Morgan as she'd feared he was, and that was the biggest blessing of the night, hands down.

Bright and early Saturday morning, Nah helped her parents pack up their vehicle with their belongings and her own, and after stopping to get donuts and coffee as was tradition, they set off on a trip out of town for the next week. This wasn't something that Nah was particularly interested in, but the chance to get away from real life for a week was not something she was going to turn her nose up at, especially since it was being paid for entirely by her parents. "I can't even remember the last time we went on a trip like this," Nowi gushed as they passed by a large sign letting them know they were leaving Ylisstol, and to come back soon. "You must've still been in school, whenever we did this last."

"Mom, I technically am still in school," Nah pointed out, her head resting against the window in the back of the car. "Just not in the same way I was back then. Pretty sure our last family trip was the trip we took out to the desert, to see the castles and to do some history tourism stuff. And if we can't remember when it was, it probably wasn't even that interesting after all."

"Oh, right, I remember. We climbed too high on the castle and the park guards kicked us out for being where we shouldn't have been." Nowi laughed, leaning back in her seat. "We tried explaining that we were old enough to be in compliance with the rules, but they didn't listen and told your dad to keep his kids under better control next time he dared take us somewhere. Remember that, Gregor?"

She looked over at her husband, who was laser-focused on the road, as it grew closer to the coastline of Ylisse. "I do remember, he was very sure that your license was fake and that you two were twins or very close sisters. That was not a good feeling for ol' Gregor after that, being told that his wife was his daughter." Even though he was doing a great job of watching the road, he still found the time to look in the rear-view mirror and crinkle his eyes in a smile toward Nah. "You are quite lucky, little miss, that your mother gave you her youthful appearance instead of you getting the much older one from me."

"It's a blessing and a curse, I'd say," Nah replied, knowing that she'd wished many a time that she didn't perpetually look like a child half her age at best. "But I get that it's good that I look young, it'll help me as I get older."

"Until all your friends aren't getting asked for ID when you go places, but they always ask you because there's no way you're old enough to be doing whatever it is you're doing." Nowi's laugh died down, as she began to gaze out the window. "Lady Tiki talks a lot about how she's never gotten away with doing anything without being carded, and she's older than I am. Guess that'll be our lives forever."

Nah already knew very well that she looked younger than all of her friends, and she'd never guessed that it would change, but the verification was good to hear, at least. "I'm looking forward to the first time that situation happens to me, then. Right now I think we all still look young, me younger than the rest of them of course, but we've never gotten away with anything without getting carded first." Not that Nah had exactly tried to do anything that required being carded, minus drinking a few times. "But as we get older, I bet that'll start changing. No idea who'll be the first one to not get asked."

With a shrug, Nowi said, "By the time I met your father, he wasn't getting asked every time we'd go out, but it wasn't until after you were born that it stopped happening altogether."

"And you still get asked every time," Gregor added, once again focused squarely on the road ahead, "and we wouldn't have it any other way."

Nah's faced scrunched slightly at how cheesy and romantic that came off, but she didn't verbally respond to it. Her parents, as old as they were, definitely tried to give the youthful energy that Nah's friends' parents still had, and for the most part they were successful. The only problem was that they were usually trying to be more casual and friendly with her, until they had some rule they wanted enforced and then they were far too strict and demanding. Still, she wouldn't have asked for them to be any different than they were right then, loving and caring and willing to drag her out of town on a trip she hadn't even asked about going on.

She looked out her window and, despite it being morning, flashing and flickering lights on the horizon caught her attention. "Ooh, what's all the way out here?" she asked, squinting her eyes to try and make sense of the lights but finding it impossible to decipher at such a distance. "Is someone getting arrested? That's a lot of flashing."

"Eyes stay on the road, Gregor," Nowi said in an uncharacteristically serious voice, reaching a hand over to her husband's shoulder and gripping it tightly. "No temptations, no even looking in its direction."

"Mom? What are you talking about, what's Dad not even allowed to look at?" The lights were getting closer, but only slightly, and it wasn't until Nah was facing them head-on from her window that she could see a sign attached to their location—Blue Sea Springs. "Is that some sort of amusement park?" she asked, excitement beginning to rise in her voice. "I didn't know that we had one of those out in the middle of nowhere, Ylisse."

"It's sort of like an amusement park, sure, if you want to think of it that way." The seriousness hadn't faded from Nowi's voice, even as she'd let go of Gregor's shoulder as they kept going straight down the highway. "Except it's not meant for children, by any means, and it's not somewhere that this family is going to be spending time together. Ever."

"Not meant for…" Nah's voice trailed off as she kept her eyes focused on the lights, thinking about what mysteries they contained. Suddenly, the truth behind the flashy place struck her and she whipped to face forward in her seat. "Okay, so it's not an amusement park, but when was anyone going to tell me that we've got a casino all the way out here? Is gambling even legal in Ylisse, or is that place supposed to be under the radar?"

There was a moment where it seemed that she wasn't going to get an answer, but then Nowi sighed and turned herself around as best as possible in her chair. "It's legal, they just keep it out of the cities and in remote places to try and deter people from going to the casinos. That one's a new one, definitely wasn't out here the last time we came this far from town, but it's not worth anyone's time or money. Like I said, we're not spending time there as a family, not even in your dreams."

Grabbing her phone, Nah wanted to look up what all Blue Sea Springs had to offer, but she didn't have enough service to make it possible, so she resigned herself to waiting until they got to their destination to do her research. "I'd never ask you to go there, I'm not exactly sure I'm interested in gambling myself. I play tabletop games with dice weekly, and every roll is a bit of a gamble, that's enough of the rush for me, I think."

"One time, back when you were a tiny little thing, there was a job building one of those casinos that I took on," Gregor started, tensing up behind the wheel. "It wasn't the easiest job, but the pay was better than any job Gregor had ever had before, and he is not a fool, so he took it on without question. One of the treats for working it was getting to play the games when they got installed. You'll never guess what happened."

While she was sure she could guess the truth, Nah decided to play it safe and guess a hopeful answer instead. "You won so much money that you're still living off of it today?"

"No. It became very clear to Gregor why they paid so well, because he came home to his wife and baby daughter with less money than he'd ever made from a complete job."

"And that's why we're not going there, or anywhere like it, so that losing that much money never happens to us again," Nowi finished, nodding sternly when she ended her sentence. There was so much left unsaid in that short story that Nah could gather on her own, but she would've been lying if she said she wasn't curious about the whole casino life, especially with how bright and flashy that place had been from such a distance. But she knew better than to start their family trip off on the wrong foot, so she nodded and accepted the cautionary tale for what it was.

They were in the car for most of the day, minus the many stops to stretch their legs and fuel up. When they did pull into a modest-sized town on the far side of Ylisse, it was after many detours and sight-seeing adventures along the way, with the promise that they'd not have to do as much of that on the way back. Not that it particularly mattered to Nah, given that she was at the mercy of whatever her parents wanted to do anyway, but she liked them giving the illusion that she had any say in the proceedings. "We'll have to call it an early night, I think," Nowi said after browsing her phone and looking around at all of the already-closed places near their hotel in the town, after they'd checked in and taken their luggage to the room. "Doesn't seem like there's that much to do now."

"That's what you think," Gregor told her, gently waggling a finger in her direction. "After nightfall there is quite the sight to be seen around here. Just you wait."

Also looking around what was visible of town and seeing the decently modern buildings built between historic-looking ones with thatched roofs and brick walls, Nah wasn't sure what her father was alluding to in the slightest. There was one matter that was on her mind, though, and she voiced that thought at once. "You're going to tell us that there's somewhere we can eat before it's too late, aren't you?"

"This hotel has a fantastic restaurant to dine in at all hours." Barking a laugh, Gregor added, "But that is not the sight to be seen, even if it's a good place. Let's unpack before we go get food, because we may not want to unpack when we get back."

"We need to unpack?" Nah asked, glancing at how she'd tucked her suitcase next to her bed, with the bare necessities for the evening pulled out. "Why does that make it seem like we'll be staying here a lot longer than just a few nights?"

"It makes it feel like home, Dinah," her father replied, before unzipping his own bag and pulling out a pillow he'd tucked inside of it. "And home needs all the belongings where they belong, doesn't it?"

She'd never fully understand some of the things that this man told her, but Nah went along with it with a smile and chose not to argue the point. Even Nowi seemed resigned to the fact that she'd need to just go through the motions her husband was expecting of them, and sure enough, once they'd pulled everything out of their suitcases and put them in logical places, he seemed satisfied enough to let them leave for dinner. On their walk through the hotel hallway and down to the lobby, Gregor tried his best to explain why he enjoyed the restaurant there as much as he did, but couldn't find the words to best describe it. "You'll understand what I mean when we eat," he ended with, shaking his head. "Every day we're here, this will be where we end up, I promise."

It really did make sense why the restaurant was so favored in his mind from the moment they sat down at a booth in the bar area and were met promptly by a waiter bringing waters and menus thicker than any Nah had seen before. She'd heard of places that had menus so large, but she'd never dined at one before, and she was interested in seeing what had them so proud to serve so much—only to flip to the middle of the menu to find that two-thirds of the whole book were dedicated to the variety of alcohols the restaurant had to offer. "Oh, is this like a brewery or something?" Nowi asked, also finding the same quirk about her menu. "I should've known that it would have to be something about drinking that would get you so excited to eat somewhere."

"The drinks do pour frequently, and for cheap," Gregor admitted, but his menu was opened to one of the last pages, not even looking at the beverages. "However, what Gregor prefers most about this place is how you can make everything your own, no matter what it is. Anything can be whatever you want it to be, and you'll never eat the same thing twice."

"Never eat the same thing twice, huh?" Repeating his words, Nowi turned to the same page he was on and stared down at the miniscule words printed before her. She read over it several times, her eyes flickering back and forth as she went line by line, only to hum to herself after finishing the page. "I see, this is quite the selection. Do they make it for us?"

Gregor grinned. "Even with all the special requests, never once have they gotten my order wrong, and for the price you would think they would do that. This place is better than anything I have had in Ylisstol, and that's saying a lot, isn't it?"

Her menu still opened to the middle page, where the drinks were staring up at her, Nah wanted to know what in the world her parents were going on about, but she was more curious about how such a modest-looking place could offer so much. It didn't seem like it was in a spot to attract a lot of business, so their large menu and their healthy selection of drinks felt like it would be better suited for somewhere with a bit more business. That perception changed about halfway through the meal, when a whole swarm of construction men and weary travelers came wandering in, seating themselves in every possible place and causing the whole room to fill up within a handful of minutes.

The bar came to life with multiple bartenders working to craft drinks, and servers seemed to come out of the woodwork to take care of everyone's orders. "I take it that when you've worked jobs around here, you've been exactly like these people?" Nowi asked, looking around at how crowded the once-empty restaurant had become, and Gregor silently nodded in return. "Makes sense why you like it so much."

"It's a perfect place for winding down after a day of work, that's for sure." He laughed into the rim of his drink, which was the third or fourth he'd had since arriving. "What a nice change of pace, being here for fun, not for work."

Nah played with her napkin, becoming slightly overwhelmed with the volume in their area of the restaurant. She had so many things she wanted to say, things she wanted to ask, things she wanted to discuss to get her mind off of the hundreds of voices she was now hearing, but she couldn't bring herself to say a thing. Nowi, noticing this unusual behavior coming from her daughter, reached a hand across the table to try comforting her.

But all Nah could see was the same situation from the last dinner out she'd had, where Maribelle had offered her a hand and she'd taken it, and she couldn't bring herself to acknowledge the gesture. "Hm, do you think we could possibly get out of here soon? I think someone's a bit tired from the travel, and don't we have something you wanted to show us once it got dark or whatever?"

Slamming down the rest of his drink, Gregor set the glass on the table and looked at Nowi, trying to figure out what had her in such a hurry to leave, before she motioned for him to look across at Nah instead. When he saw the look of disinterest painted across Nah's face, he seemed to catch on immediately. "The two of you can head out to the lobby, Gregor will take care of paying for the meal," he told them, and he didn't give it even a second before he was trying to push Nowi out of her spot. "Go on now, get!"

The volume level in the hotel lobby was still a lot louder than it had been when they'd arrived earlier in the day, with guests lined up to check in and people milling around waiting for various things. Nah could at least hear herself thinking out there, so she was able to calm herself down a bit, although she still wasn't speaking to her mother. "I'm curious about what your father wants to show us tonight," Nowi remarked, knowing that acting like everything was fine was the best way to handle the problem that had arisen. "He hadn't mentioned there being something special we'd get to see here before we got here, so I wonder if it's something real or something he's made up to try selling us on this place."

"Lying to you about there being something to look at after nightfall? Why would I?" As if he'd been with them the whole time, Gregor placed one hand on Nowi's head and the other on Nah's shoulder, both of them looking at him with various states of surprise at his reappearance. He played it off like it was nothing, continuing with, "Let us head out to where we parked, I'll—"

"You're not planning on driving somewhere after all those drinks, are you?" It wasn't the smartest thing, to blurt something out like that, but Nah was already coming down from being overwhelmed, she didn't need to add panic to the list of problems she had. "Dad, if that's your plan, you better let Mom do the driving instead, since I…know how you both feel about me driving."

"—who ever said a thing about needing to drive? A short walk's all we need." With a wink, Gregor let go of them both and started for the door, and the ladies exchanged a glance before following him outside. Sure enough, when they got out to where the car was parked, he gestured down the sidewalk, along the main road through the town, and as a trio they walked a few blocks until the road seemed to dip down into a valley out of nowhere.

That was where, rising from the middle of nowhere, stood a pillar of rock and vegetation, with a perfect hole cutting through it that allowed them to see the night sky on the other side. Peeking up through the hole was the moon, in the middle of rising for the day, and with it being nearly full, it was large and bright through its little frame. "Eyelet Rock, they call it," Gregor explained, waving a hand toward the structure as if they weren't already looking at it. "Yes, you can see the sun through it, and the moon during the day too, but…"

"But you planned this trip to be during a time when the moon would be at its brightest through the rock, didn't you?" Nowi finished, giving her husband a smile as he returned the favor back at her. "That's very thoughtful of you, and it explains why you think so fondly of this place. This is really, really cool, Gregor."

"It's neat," Nah agreed, not sure what else there was to say about a rock with a hole in the middle. "I'm glad I get to see it tonight."

"When the moon is full, the last night we'll be here, we will come see it again. For now, just know that it waits for us." Punctuating his sentence with a yawn, Gregor turned back to face the direction the hotel was in. "It feels like time to turn in for the night. Tomorrow, we get to go further to see where I have been working, and what all the area around it has to offer."

Once more, Nowi and Nah shared a look, but this time it was to see who'd ask the pressing question of the moment. Nowi ended up doing the honors, as Nah started walking slowly back toward the hotel. "And tomorrow night we dine at your favorite restaurant again?"

"Wouldn't have it any other way."

Under her breath, low enough that only the night air could catch her dismissive tone, Nah replied to her father's statement, "But I kind of wish you would."