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?

9. Sound the Alarms

Tuesday. In a normal week, it would be the day of the next session, the day where Nah would drive down to Morgan's house and use Lucina's computer to play their little campaign virtually. That didn't even feel like something that would be happening if this were a normal week, but she hadn't heard anything saying otherwise and she wasn't about to ruin the midpoint of her trip by trying to ask about the status of their game. As far as she was aware, nothing more than Noire knowing what had happened was the specific outcome from that horrible interaction down in Morgan's room, so if they could just pretend none of that had happened, perhaps there was hope their game could go on.

A disgusting thought, wanting to forget the manipulation and forced exposure she'd experienced because of someone's slip of sanity, but even still Nah wanted to believe that Morgan could be saved from the darkness beginning to consume him. If bringing him back to the light meant going back to his house on a weekly basis and playing his game with all of their friends, with more explicit boundaries established between them, then that was what she was going to do. There was no way that she was going to let one bad decision of theirs (since she knew she wasn't fully innocent in the whole ordeal) ruin things for their entire group of friends.

But she was starting to let that decision ruin her time spent with her parents, as she was spending more energy looking at her phone and making sure all was well back home than she was actively engaging in their trip. Countless times, Nowi would put her hand over Nah's phone to redirect her attention, to look at something that Gregor was excitedly trying to show to them at one of the many sites around the town they were staying in. "I swear, maybe we should've shut your phone off for this trip, you're glued to it or something," she remarked after one of the many times her hand had become a cover for the device. "You've never been this bad about being on it before."

"We've also never been on a trip like this since I had a phone," Nah reminded her, resigning herself to putting her phone away yet again. There wasn't a single rumbling of anything amiss back home, which should have been putting her mind at ease; however, Nah was subjecting herself to an awful lot of doomscrolling, expecting something to fall apart the moment she stopped checking. "But I'll try to be more present, for your sake. What's this that you're trying to show us, Dad?"

Cue Gregor getting to do the tour guide bit he'd been planning on for the whole trip, while Nowi and Nah both had to watch on, with varying levels of interest. It wasn't that he didn't have interesting things to tell them about—because there was a lot of neat history that the far corners of Ylisse had to offer—but rather that there were much more pressing matters that could have been taking place back home. Matters that could have had a lasting impact on Nah's life if she didn't catch them being talked about fast enough. Matters that she would prefer stay completely private, under wraps, and out of the public knowledge.

Matters that she would never, in a million years, openly admit to her parents without being forced to do so. And since it was Tuesday, and she had no idea if there was going to be a gathering of her friends even without her being available, Nah's mind couldn't fully focus on the tourist part of the trip she'd willingly gone on. Her thoughts continuously drifted back to the what-ifs in the situation, the possibilities of someone else finding out what had happened, the truth being skewed and her being painted as someone much worse than she really was. But unless she resigned herself to having to tell her parents about what had happened, Nah couldn't keep going back to looking at her phone and making sure everything was still under control, and there just wasn't any way she was going to do that.

"Dinah, seriously? Are you even mentally here with us?" Nowi was waving her hand in her daughter's face, trying to get her to focus on something that wasn't her own thoughts, and when Nah blinked a few times, she backed away. "I'll take that as a no, you weren't. What gives with that?"

"There's been a lot going on at home the past few weeks, and I'm having a hard time keeping myself away from thinking about it." That was the most sanitized, clean version of the truth that Nah could give without technically lying. But it wasn't enough for Nowi, who motioned for her to explain further. "I mean, you've heard all about some of it from Lady Tiki, she wants me trying to wrangle a friend back to the light and it's…taking a toll on me, to say the very least."

Nowi's nose scrunched up at the explanation, but as she reached for her own phone (presumably to call up the manakete elder and give her a piece of her own mind), Gregor cleared his throat to get their attention. "This is a family trip, let's try to keep home things at home and fun things here with us, okay?" he suggested, approaching the two and bending down to put one hand on each of them, squeezing their shoulders tightly. "It can be tricky to do that, but the fun things here aren't fun things we can get at home and you really—"

He was cut off by the distinct sound of Nah's phone ringing, and she quickly grabbed to see who it was that was calling her. The fact that it was Brady gave her no solace in any way, shape, or form, but with both of her parents right in close proximity and her not knowing what would happen if she answered, she made the choice to ignore the call and let him leave her a voicemail if it was truly important. "Oh, so now you're listening to us and choosing to be present instead of focusing on people at home," Nowi said, watching her daughter's quick-time reaction to the call. "Took you long enough."

"What do you want from me?" Nah's words came out harshly, which had admittedly been the intention but she'd hoped to sound at least a little nicer when she'd said it. "If I'm on my phone, you've got a problem. If I choose not to be on my phone, oh good, you still have a problem. Can I do anything right in your eyes?"

"That's no way to speak to me!" Raising her own voice, Nowi swiftly moved Gregor's hand off of her shoulder so that she could get closer to Nah, trying to be as intimidating as she could be despite her small size. "I am your mother, Dinah, and I would really appreciate it if you'd treat me like that for a change!"

Years of conflicting emotions and problems, which had long been bubbling under the surface, felt like they were ready to erupt there in her mother's face, but Nah took a deep breath and accepted that it wasn't the time or place to voice her grievances. "I'm sorry, I just…did what I thought you'd want me to do in that moment. You've been on me about using my phone so much that I figured answering a call would be out of the question."

"I mean, yeah, it is out of the question. This is family time, not spending time chatting with your girlfriends time." Nowi backed away, crossing her arms over her chest as she did. "So I'm proud of you that you didn't answer. But it shouldn't have taken this long."

Nah wasn't going to correct the fact of who it was calling her, because she knew mentioning that it was a guy trying to speak to her would only open more problems between them all, so she merely nodded and decided it was best to leave things in a bit of misunderstanding. "Of course, my bad for trying to deal with those things still going on back home. I'll be better about it going forward, promise."

Despite everything seemingly being patched up after the little argument, Nah could tell that there was still some deep-seated anger and bothered emotions dwelling within her soul, but she wasn't about to make more of a scene than she already had. In fact, even after they'd gone back to their hotel room that night, she kept her mouth shut and her hands off her phone as much as she could, even though every time she saw her screen she could see the notification of the voicemail someone had left her. She couldn't bring herself to try listening to it, in case her mother was around and another argument got started, but she truly felt like she needed to know what Brady was trying to call her about.

It was right around the time that they were heading to dinner (at the restaurant there at the hotel yet again) that she came up with an idea to get to listen to the message without being around someone who'd judge her for it. "Say, we've been stuck spending all sorts of time together lately," she started, sitting on her bed while her parents stood around theirs. "Why don't I go take a walk, so that the two of you can have a bit of alone time?"

"That's the weirdest implication I've ever heard from you, Dinah." Shaking her head as she was visibly rejecting the offer, Nowi looked at Gregor to see how he'd help back her denial up, only to see him seriously considering the idea. "Whoa, seriously? She'll know what we're up to in here."

"I was thinking more about just getting to talk about life and the trip and what we should do before we go home, maybe plan a surprise for our daughter while we've got her." Gregor winked at Nowi, a motion that Nah saw and initially cringed at, until she remembered that it was best to take her father's word at face value. "We should let Dinah go for a walk, then she can meet us at our table in half an hour."

"You really think that…" Nowi's voice trailed off as she too realized that Gregor was meaning what he said, not trying to be coy about anything else. "I suppose that's fair, then. Half an hour, at the table, don't be late."

Nah jumped to her feet and scrambled for the door, perhaps a bit too eagerly but what was done was done. "I'll be there, don't you worry!" she called back at her parents as she flung the door open and ran out of the room, heading down the hallway just to get away from where she knew they'd be. Somehow that plan had worked better than she'd expected it ever would, and it bought her enough time to listen to the message and call back if needed.

She didn't know what she should have been expecting to hear when she called her voicemail to hear what Brady had to say, but it certainly wasn't what she got. "Uh, I'm guessin' that you're still doing things with your parents and can't answer the phone right now," he started, sounding hesitant and a bit worried with his words. "I'm just callin' to let you know that Noire came over today to see Ma, and while she was here she happened to mention somethin' about you and Morgan and I…I…" That was where Nah's heart skipped a beat, at the same time as the sniffles and choked-up words started in the message. "If I'd known that he was plannin' to treat you like that, I would've kicked his ass into next week for you. Nah, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you…"

If there was more to what Brady had intended on saying to her, he didn't ever spit it out because the remaining twenty seconds of his message were just him sobbing. Upon the message ending, Nah considered still going through with her original idea of calling Brady to talk to him about what he'd said, but she thought better of it and chose to text him instead. She was ultimately thankful she'd ignored the call when it had been made, but emotionally she knew it would've done Brady some good to hear her talk about what had gone on. She didn't know the level of detail that Noire had gone into with him and his mother, but based on what she'd just heard, it was enough to put the blame of the situation entirely on Morgan's shoulders. As long as she wasn't being seen as being in the wrong, she couldn't be too mad about the news getting out through someone else's lips.

Hey, got your message, my parents are hounding me so I can't call, but I want you to know that I didn't tell you because of the shame the whole thing made me feel. Kind of a difficult situation to find myself in. She thought about saying something more, potentially about how she appreciated his offer to get physical with Morgan, but decided it was best to keep the mood of the message a bit lighter. Don't worry too much about me. I'll get over and past everything that happened.

When she sent the message, the immediate fear kicked in that she'd sent it to the wrong person, but after double and triple checking that it was sent to Brady and only to Brady, she felt a bit more at ease. Then the worry of when she'd get a response to her response settled into her mind, and she began pacing down the hall, not sure where to go to clear her soul but knowing that she'd be captive in her own thoughts until she could be alone for longer. Of all the times for weird and uncomfortable things to happen to her, why did it have to be the week before going on a family trip?

"This whole thing is stupid," she lamented, tucking her phone away so that she could use her hands to pound on her legs without worry of dropping something. "Couldn't he have just been honest about what he wanted to do to me before he went through with doing it?"

There was the slight issue that he'd been perfectly transparent about most of his desires, just not the one that had made everything most awkward, but Nah wasn't about to mentally implicate herself in everything again. As far as it seemed, though, he wasn't exactly bringing up their prior discussions with anyone, and all that was being spread around was coming from one source in particular.

But that was just what it seemed like from Nah's perspective.

The actual truth was a lot less pretty, and when she found out just what Morgan was sharing about their encounter, she wished that she could go back to it only being Noire who was telling others about what she'd seen.

It was the next morning, far before any alarms were set to go off, that Nowi's phone began blaring its ringtone that was manually set for Lady Tiki's number, the sound of which woke all three people in the room up. "What's she doing calling before sunrise?" Nowi asked, tiredness and surprise in her voice as she reached to grab her phone, but when she picked it up the call had been ended on Tiki's end. Instead of leaving it there, she called the elder manakete right back, assuming the worst, and whatever it was that Tiki led with had Nowi sitting straight up in the bed, like she'd just risen from the dead.

"Are…are you sure about that?" she said quietly into the phone, casting a glance in Nah's direction. "That doesn't seem like—no, I get that that's something that could happen, but my Dinah? She'd never do such a thing."

Pulling the covers of her bed up over her face, Nah inhaled deeply as she listed to her mother's side of the conversation go on, with sleepy and incredulous statements being made in response to whatever it was Lady Tiki was saying. She had a hunch that it had something to do with a Fell Dragon-worshipping friend of hers, but it wasn't until she heard her mother's impassioned "I knew that anyone associating with a Grima follower is bad news!" that she was solid in her assumption. Now it was just a matter of what Lady Tiki had heard, and what she was choosing to share with Nowi at such an early hour.

That became knowledge for them all soon enough, because the moment she got off the phone, Nowi threw herself back down against her pillow and groaned. "That'd explain why Lady Tiki feels the need to call at five o'clock on a Wednesday morning. Dinah, please tell me and your father that you haven't been lying to us about your weekly activities with those friends of yours."

"I haven't been lying about my weekly activities. I go play our game for a few hours once a week, that's all." It'd have been funny if Lady Tiki had suddenly gotten up in arms about Nah playing a game that involved dragons acting as a less-than-perfect race among other creatures, but she knew that wasn't what this was about. "What did Lady Tiki tell you I've been doing?"

"She said…" Nowi's voice trailed off after two words, her humming to herself as she thought about how to sum up what she'd heard. "She received a call from someone who attends another church of Naga in town, she didn't name names but I'm pretty sure it's someone we both know, and that someone told her that they'd heard that you've been recording yourself getting up to no good with that Morgan boy." There was a pause as Nowi processed the rest of what she'd heard, while Nah had to figure out her own response. "And, like, I guess they'd heard it from someone who'd watched the video?"

Squishing her eyes closed as she mentally cursed Noire's inability to keep this one thing secret from literally everyone, Nah decided that she had no choice but to tell as much of the truth as necessary to clear the air. "Okay, so, we definitely know who called Lady Tiki," she started as she came out from under the blanket, meeting both of her parents in the real world once more, "and I'm not surprised that she'd do that, given how weird she's been about me in general. Guess she took a piece of ammo, that I hope to Naga she hasn't actually seen and just heard about, and decided to try and shoot her shot with it."

"So the recording thing is real?"

Nah grimaced, expecting that question from her mother but getting it from her father instead. "I mean, sort of? Dad, Mom, you have to both believe me when I tell you this, but when I got forced into kissing him, it wasn't by my request, it wasn't my idea, and I didn't know he had a camera going until I saw Noire watching and…" She gestured with her hands wildly, trying to express how unaware she'd been. "I didn't ask for any of it. He came onto me when he had me alone and then kept a video of it because he's deranged or something."

Gregor looked to Nowi, who was still laying down with her eyes wide, her mind working overtime to try and process all she'd just learned about her daughter. "Why have we had to wait until we're on this trip to learn about this, Dinah?" he asked, slowly turning to face Nah, who was still grimacing when his eyes got to her. "Was there no way you could trust us with this news before the trip happened?"

"It…it happened a week ago, I was kind of still processing that it had happened in the first place." A sinking feeling was beginning to develop in the pit of Nah's stomach, that if she didn't act quickly, things were about to get severely out of hand. "And I swear to you both that I didn't ask for this, and that this is all that happened. There's no need for calling any cops, getting the law involved, none of it."

Nowi sat up at a snail's pace, getting as far as her back mostly straight before she fell to the bed once more. "I mean, if it is who we think it is that called Lady Tiki over this, then isn't the law technically already involved?" she said, defeat in her voice. "Not that I'd pick your legal battles for you, but keep that in mind."

"I know, I know, I'm already on it." True to her word, Nah had grabbed her phone and was texting Brady to tell him to get his mother out of her personal issues and that she'd deal with them on her own. "This is why I was so happy to get to come on this trip, it was a reason to get away from all of this drama and figure out how to handle it, but apparently people can't keep their mouths shut and—"

"That's why you've constantly been on your phone!" The realization had hit Nowi quick, and she didn't bother apologizing for cutting her daughter off like she had. "Not that it justifies it even a little bit, but it explains why you've been so different than normal when it comes to your phone."

"—yep, you've got me there. I've been making sure that the one person I knew had been dragged into this hadn't said a word, and I guess the one time I listened to you and Dad and stayed off my phone, she went right to telling the first person she could." A text to Noire asking for her reasoning behind telling Maribelle of all the people in the world was due in the near future, but it wasn't an immediate task Nah was going to take on. "I'm surprised that it wasn't Morgan himself bragging about what he'd done that got it to Lady Tiki's attention like this but, you know, it is what it is."

During that entire back-and-forth, Gregor had silently gotten up and began pacing around, and it was clear looking at him that he was overcome with emotions on the matter. "This should never have had the chance to happen to my child," he said once the two ladies had stopped talking. "This is a failure of me, as father, and not of you, as an innocent girl."

"Dad, what are you going on about?" Coming to her feet as well, Nah went right to stand in Gregor's way and held her arms out for him. "It's not like he went any further than kissing me, without my consent sure, but it wasn't anything more than that. You aren't a failure because some guy decided he wanted to know how I taste, and did it as some weird power play over my friends or whatever. Still not sure what was up with that."

"That…could be true," Gregor replied, standing tall over Nah before bending down to pick her up in a hug, "but it never should have happened. When we get home, if that boy shows up anywhere near our home, he is in for a fight."

While she'd expected that to be a threat that was made, hearing it only made the unsettled feeling inside Nah grow more intense, and she squirmed in her father's arms until he'd set her back down. "I'll need to go over to his house one more time," she told her parents, having spent time over the trip thinking that course of action through, "but I'm going to go with a friend and leave with a friend, and it'll be a quick stop. I need to get some things of mine from his place."

"Can't you have one of your friends do it instead?" Nowi asked, finally sitting up for real. "I don't know if I feel comfortable with you being over there anymore."

"I'm not really comfortable with going over there either, but I have to be the one to do this. It wouldn't work if it was someone else going." The particular reason she needed to be there was to see the books she'd now need to shell out for, so that she could make good on her promise to Ribbon that she'd get to play the game. There was more to it than that, and Nah had full intentions of finding a way to get Farona out of their campaign to use her in the one she started with Ribbon and whoever else would play with them, but this final visit was one that was meant to bring a new beginning to a new game.

Their room was quiet for a few minutes, before Nowi decided that, since they were already awake, it was just best to start their day and, in her words, "try to pretend like none of that stuff happened, because there wasn't anything that could be done about it while out of town". So, for the rest of that day as they packed up and concluded their sightseeing earlier than anticipated, the weight of what had woken them up rest on all of their shoulders, but not a word was mentioned about it. It wasn't until they were on the drive back to Ylisstol, two days earlier than planned, that anything was said on the matter, and even then it was just asking if Nah had heard anything back from the message she had sent, which she checked then and saw that her original message hadn't even been read yet.

"I'm sure it'll all be okay," she said, turning her phone's screen off in sadness as she couldn't help but wonder why Brady hadn't seen what she'd sent him. "I mean, I did nothing wrong, nothing illegal happened even if it wasn't a cool thing that did happen, there's nothing that can really come from this that's super horrible. It'll all be okay."

If only she truly believed what she was saying, and based on the lack of response she got from saying it, she didn't think her parents believed it either. What a way to end a trip.

---

There were a lot of things that Nah expected to have happen while she was still off from work on break. Fallout from the situation with Morgan was one of them, as was getting to spend a lot of time chilling at home with her mother as her father would inevitably have to leave town again for another job. As painful as it was, going to the donut shop with Nowi and sharing a breakfast together was a third inevitability, and naturally getting to check on the new shop and see what Laurent and Noire were doing was something as well.

What she didn't expect was to get a knock on the door the afternoon after they'd all gotten home, and finding a gaggle of women standing there looking grim and concerned as they watched her open the house up to them. And if, for some reason, she'd expected this arrival, she wouldn't have expected that Maribelle would be at the head of the group, her hands pressed together in a praying position. "Are you home alone right now, Dinah dearest?" she asked, her sickly sweet voice as fake as ever. "Would you mind if we came inside and kept you company, if that were the case?"

Nah had to take a few moments to digest what she had standing outside her family's home before she could even muster a response. Obviously Maribelle was there, but so were three other older women who she recognized as being Severa's mother, Cynthia's mother, and Kjelle's mother, and if seeing all of them there wasn't strange enough, standing back behind all of them was Kjelle herself. This felt like it was a majority of people who would be better suited for spending time with her mother, with there only being one person present that was someone Nah actually spoke to willingly. On that note… "I am home alone, but I'm not sure Mom would be thrilled to know I invited you all inside."

"Your mother is aware we were stopping by," Maribelle insisted, breaking her hands apart to gesture toward the door and Nah herself. "Call it a check-in from several concerned individuals, but we want to make sure that you and her both are perfectly fine after what happened in the name of the Fell Dragon."

That explained why everyone present was at least a part-time attendant at the services at a nearby non-manakete church of Naga, because the situation had now become religious in nature. "Did you tell Mom that you'd be here trying to preach to me?"

"Gods, no, that would be ridiculous." Taking a step closer, Maribelle bounced her head so that her hair gave the motion for everyone to file in as well. "When I spoke to Nowi earlier, I had told her that we were merely coming by to see if there was anything we could do for your family in this difficult time. This sort of behavior is not acceptable in Naga's name, after all, and we want to assure you that you are still loved despite everything."

"They also want to know if they need to do anything to that punk," Kjelle called from the back of the group, her hands cupped around her mouth to amplify her voice. Once everyone had turned their attention to her, she narrowed her eyes and added, "I've offered to tackle him on your behalf. Done it once, would gladly do it again."

"That's…also part of why we are here, yes," Maribelle conceded, turning back to face Nah with a forced smile upon her lips. "But that part was absolutely not my idea, I have warned them that any physical retaliation could have legal consequences but I have heard from a…somewhat reliable source that attacking this boy has been a constant over the years."

Nah wasn't really sure how to react to any of this, so she slowly closed the front door and locked it, leaving everyone on the outside long enough for her to call her mother and demand that she get home from the store as fast as she could. "What, did something happen?" Nowi asked, loud music and voices audible behind her. "I'm in line now, shouldn't be more than like fifteen minutes or so, but tell me. Did something happen?"

"Yeah, something happened, we've got religious stuff happening on the front step." Nah leaned her head against the door, where she knew Maribelle and the others were still waiting. "Should I let them in? It's a bunch of ladies you know."

The call went silent, followed almost immediately by the sound of Maribelle's phone ringing on the other side of the door. "Hello, Nowi. Yes, yes, we have arrived at your house and your daughter is here alone. Would you mind telling her that we have discussed this and that you said we were welcome to come inside, with or without you present?"

There was no point in waiting for her mother to get back if that was how the chain of events was going to go, so before her phone could go off with a return call, Nah opened the door as wide as it could go and gestured for everyone to come inside. As they entered, she took the time to speak her truth for all of them to hear. "Look, I don't know what your plans are for this meeting, or intervention, or whatever you want to call it, but I want you all to know that I did nothing wrong and I'm fine. Everything's fine."

"Then consider our presence here less for you and more for your mother," Maribelle told her, clearly having been the one to put the whole plan together given that she was being the mouthpiece for them all. "We shall just sit down here and wait for her to get back, if you have no qualms with that arrangement." Before Nah even had the chance to say otherwise, Maribelle had taken a seat in Nowi's favorite spot on the couch and the other older women sat around her, the four of them quickly getting to talking about what they were going to do.

"I promise you that I'm not here to be a part of whatever that is," Kjelle said, leaning an arm on one of Nah's shoulders, before shaking her head. "I mean, I'm here because I've been dragged into being a part of it, but it's complicated. Honestly, once they said that slide-tackling him was out of the question, I lost all interest in being here, but Mom didn't tell me that was the case until we were already on the way."

"He doesn't deserve to be slide-tackled over this," Nah muttered, giving Kjelle a side-eye that wasn't immediately noticed. While she wasn't actually against the idea of there being physical retribution, and the idea that there were two people offering it had her smiling inside, there were plenty of other reasons why expecting that sort of attack to go over well was a fool's errand. "He deserves to lose his friends and have everyone realize how much of a creep his new fascination with the Fell Dragon has made him, but I don't want anyone hurting him."

Lifting her arm, Kjelle seemed to be about to say something, before she grabbed one of the braids in Nah's hair and tugged on it, directing her upstairs and away from the gaggle of women waiting for Nowi's return. At first, Nah found it strange that someone she'd technically invited into her home was leading her around, but then she realized that this was being done so that they could speak somewhere in private. But, of course, as soon as they were going up the stairs, four pairs of eyes were looking in their direction, something that Kjelle seemed to have thought of as she called down, "I'm going to speak to Nah one on one, just in case you all intimidate her. Which you probably do."

"Says one of the more physically intimidating people in the room," her own mother shot back, which earned a laugh from some of the other ladies. At last glance, it was only Maribelle still watching them as they ascended, which felt perfectly in-character with her normal behavior toward Nah.

There wasn't a moment to think about what all of that meant, however, because once they got upstairs and into Nah's room, Kjelle had the door closed and was towering over her as best as she could—a feat only possible given that Nah was somehow smaller than Kjelle's short height. "I need you to tell me exactly what he did to you," she demanded, putting a serious expression on her face. "Noire gave me a rundown when I mentioned that I'd be coming to see you, because she's in a full-blown panic over all this. Have you ever had to deal with her freaking out that she thinks her mother's going to start romancing someone half her age? It's bizarre as hell, Nah, and we've got to get to the bottom of this."

"Why is Noire's mother somehow involved in this now?" Confused at that entire chain of events and how it even got started, Nah shook it off and thought best how to explain what had happened in a way that most likely hadn't already been said. "Okay, but basically, Morgan made moves on me and did it on camera with an audience that I wasn't supposed to know about, and for whatever reason, he picked Noire as that audience."

"You know why that is, don't you? The picking Noire as the audience thing, that is." Kjelle's eyes went a little wide as she waited for Nah's response, and when she got nothing in return, she sighed. "Okay, you're going to just have to trust me on this one, because this is Mom's word and sometimes she can get things a little wrong just to get heated about them. But apparently, Noire's mom has been getting super into the Fell Dragon stuff and has been dipping her toes in waters she shouldn't be touching. And apparently, there was a night where her, some weird lady that Mom didn't recognize, and Morgan were all at a table at a bar together, just talking and…that's what I've got."

"Is it possible that your mom was drinking that night and got her details mixed up?" It probably was, but it was honestly just as likely that Morgan was sneaking out to meet with his aunt Aversa, and they'd just happened to link up with Noire's mom in the process. "Because I don't want to think that Morgan's that depraved."

"He literally got you on camera doing things you weren't comfortable with, we already know he's a sick freak. Let's just add to the list, shall we?" Taking a step back, Kjelle went over to Nah's bed and sat down, her face deep in thought about what else there was to talk about in specific. "That's your cue to get talking, by the way. I've got nothing else."

"And you think I've got anything? I'm so tired of all of this, I don't have anything to add and I don't have any ideas of what to do anymore." That wasn't true, Nah did still have her intentions of going over to that house one more time, but she wasn't letting everyone in the world hear about that plan. "I just wish we could ignore that any of this happened, but we can't, because…"

"Because Noire told Brady's mother, and Brady's mother went off the deep end wanting to fight for your valor or honor or whatever she's deluding herself into thinking she's doing with all this." Kjelle shrugged. "I got dragged along because they wanted someone who could 'connect' with you better, and they had me and Cynthia as their choices and she seemed really apprehensive about showing up here for some reason."

There was a heaviness to the air after those last few words, and Nah happened to look straight at Kjelle when she said them, picking up what she was referring to without further elaboration. "Don't pretend like you don't know what the reason is. I got screwed over in that whole situation with Severa being here in town and…and…" She found herself unable to voice the second half of the thought she'd had, merely letting her shoulders hang instead.

"Severa's a bitch when it comes to being asked to do anything halfway right, but she's a good friend when you give her the chance." That seemed like a forced statement, especially when the corners of Kjelle's mouth began to twitch. "Not like she's been good to any of us except Cynthia over the past months, but whatever. Can't speak ill of her, people don't like when we call out the truth about her."

Now things were moving away from the uncomfortable Morgan situation, and while Nah still didn't particularly want to talk about how she'd been forced to fail to be present for a friend at a happy moment, she knew that she at least had the chance now. "Well, you know what happened when she was out here, don't you?"

"I think we all do. She conveniently forgot to let you know about invitations to the baby shower, then convinced everyone that you'd just chosen to ignore the invitation. It was a huge deal, there was a lot of screaming over it. Pretty sure Cynthia's mom was about driven to tears because of how upsetting it all was." Kjelle raised a hand with a single finger pointed, before she lowered it quickly. "The party wasn't even half as good as the one you'd put on, just by the way."

"Because you're totally not speaking with bias there, nope."

The two ladies looked at each other and laughed for a moment, before it seemed a realization struck Kjelle hard and she groaned, falling on her side onto the bed. "It totally just hit me that I know the real reason why they asked me to come with them here today," she muttered, her voice a lot smaller than it had been. "When Mom told me about this, she said that it was a gathering of concerned mothers to check on a hurting family, and that I needed to come along to be a part of things for your sake. They absolutely asked me because—"

"Oh! Yeah, that'd do it!" Cupping her face, Nah couldn't help but smile at that realization. "I like the idea that you're here because you're my friend, but you being here because you count as a concerned mother works too."

"—and they made it a decision between me and Cynthia, who also counts." Kjelle put a hand on her face and sighed, almost like she felt dumb over her delayed reaction. Unsure of how to respond to it, Nah merely sat down on the floor next to her friend and looked at her, waiting for her to say anything else.

Instead of more conversation being allowed to bloom between the two of them, they were disrupted by the sound of the door opening and Nowi peeking her head inside, looking straight at Nah and narrowing her eyes. "What are you doing up here when guests are in our home?" she asked, sounding quite sour. "You know how I feel about people being in here."

"It wasn't my idea to come up, promise!" Nah protested, nodding her head ever-so-slightly in Kjelle's direction to try implicating her as the person responsible for where they were. "But, seriously, Mom? Do you think those ladies would be causing any harm to your house?"

"There are two of them in my kitchen as we speak, trying to bake things as a 'we hope things get better between you and Naga' gift. I'm not one to complain about treats, but my kitchen? In my house? For a gift being made for us? I don't like that." Her eyes narrowing a bit more, Nowi added, "I'd recommend that the two of you get downstairs and put an end to this before something goes horribly wrong."

With that, she closed the door and audibly went back down the stairs, leaving Nah in a state where she didn't know what she should do, or how any of it was her problem. "You know how this could get worse?" Kjelle started, picking herself back up off the bed, only to leave Nah hanging when she didn't elaborate. "No, actually, that's a dumb idea. Let's get downstairs, I'm sure my mother's one of the ones causing problems and that was your mom's way of telling me I need to get her in line."

"Would that even come as a surprise to any of us?"

"Given how many times I've had to pick her and my dad both up after they've done stupid things, it'd be more of a surprise if she wasn't down there causing chaos in your mom's kitchen. Sorry that I couldn't impart any wisdom or whatever the hell they wanted me to do here, but…" Trailing off as she stood up, Kjelle looked down at Nah before offering her a hand to help her to her feet as well. "You know that I'm here to pick you up when you need it. And I'll totally, definitely kick Morgan into next week if you ask me."

It felt like a genuine pair of offers, so Nah took advantage of the one she could (being helped up) and tucked the other one into her pocket for later. No, there wasn't any way in the world she'd go running to a friend to inflict physical harm on Morgan after what he'd done, but it was nice to know the option was there. Of course, if it came down to it, she felt that there were several others higher on the list that should get the first blows in on him, specifically Noire first and Brady second. Perhaps she could mentally slot Kjelle into that list somewhere after the two of them, and after herself.

But it wasn't time to think about a retribution list, it was time to get back downstairs and see what Maribelle and her religious gaggle had done to the house while they'd been in the bedroom talking. True to Nowi's word, the house was beginning to smell a lot like batter for a cake or pastry of some sort, and when they got down the stairs it was clear that most of the women were indeed gone. In fact, it was all but one of them who had disappeared elsewhere in the house, including Nowi. "We put on a movie to address the ways a community can support people in this situation," Maribelle explained when she saw that Nah was once again with the group. "Your mother said that she has seen this one before, but it is a certified classic. We can all use a rewatch of it."

Nah's eyes tracked to the TV screen, which was darkened with an inside-car scene of a romance movie that she knew, without a doubt, she'd seen with her mother on that very couch. "Isn't this the one that has the girl get blinded because of her relationship with the bad boy, and she only gets her sight back when her new boyfriend takes her to his weird church?" she asked, coming around the couch to have a seat because, whether she wanted to admit it or not, it was a movie that was so bad, it was worth watching a million times.

"The very one. Extended version, with the cut scene of her confessional where the priest learns just what had happened to her." Holding her arm out to give Nah somewhere to sit nestled up next to her, Maribelle only dropped the gesture when Nah sat as far away from her as she could. "Ahem, I take it that you will be watching, then, Dinah?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"What about you, Kjelle? Are you going to watch as well?" Maribelle looked over to where she'd last seen the other woman standing, only to find that she was backing away from the couch and TV entirely. "Should I take that as a no?"

"I…I'm going to make sure that my mom isn't about to be responsible for a house fire, actually," Kjelle replied, quickly scurrying off toward the kitchen. That left Nah there alone with Maribelle, with a cheesy romance movie on the screen and a world of things left unsaid between the two of them.

It became fairly obvious after a few minutes of sitting there watching the movie that Maribelle did not intend on them seeing the whole film through, given how she kept fidgeting and looking in Nah's direction. Nah intended on making her suffer in her silence as long as possible, but eventually she decided that it'd be more merciful if she just came out and asked for the truth behind the day's random visit. "You're not actually here because you care about Naga and the church and want to make sure that everything's okay, are you?"

"Gods, why would I lie about my intentions of appearing at your doorstep without warning?" The fake way that Maribelle responded made it clear that she'd been lying about a lot of it. "I deeply worry for your well being after such a terrible, terrible thing has happened to you."

"What, exactly, happened to me?" Nah knew that the answer to that question could be anything, but she needed to hear it come from Maribelle's mouth to know how to proceed further in the interaction. "Go on, tell me all about what you heard."

"Why, you were coerced into kissing someone on camera without your consent, and with an audience that had not consented to things either. In the grand scheme of things, it may be seen as a minor offense, but that sort of behavior can damage a woman's psyche, completely devastating her for any future relationships." One of Maribelle's hands gripped the cushion on the couch, while the other was used to flick a wayward strand of hair out of her face. "This is merely me acting on what I have been told, trying to make you feel better when things are clearly not going so well for you."

Nah nodded, trying to make it seem like she believed what she was hearing, but she couldn't hold her tongue forever. "And it has absolutely nothing to do with my friendship with your son? Or the job offer you sprung on me last week?"

"Dinah, if you think that I would put my personal matters before your well-being, I feel that you have gravely misunderstood the sort of woman I am." Huffing, Maribelle leaned closer to where Nah was sitting, a serious look appearing on her face. "I am doing this to better myself in the eyes of Naga, and to help you do the same."

That hit a nerve within Nah, and she couldn't keep her voice down about it. "Oh, so that's why you found it appropriate to call my church's elder to tell her about what had happened to me, ruining my family's vacation just so that you could go on this power trip? What made you think that any of these ladies actually care about me being kissed on camera? None of them do. Well, maybe one does, but not all of them!"

"There is no need to scream at me, you insolent brat," Maribelle hissed in return, before sighing. "And there are two of us who care. You forget that, deep down, I do care about and respect you more than you could ever know. Because of what you mean to my Brady."

Was she going to believe that? Not in a million years. But there was something about the way Maribelle said her son's name that made Nah's heart pang, and she felt her anger starting to subside as quickly as it had built up, being replaced with a feeling that she couldn't quite describe. "Okay. Sure. You care that I got kissed because of your…son…"
"He sobbed after he found out from your little friend with the mother issues. Absolutely destroyed about how you had gotten tricked into such a dirty situation, by someone he considered a close friend." Closing her eyes, Maribelle sat back up and leaned into the back of the couch, thinking about what else she could add. "This was all his idea, whether you want to believe me on that or not. He asked if I could pull together some of the women from our church and come check on you, despite you manaketes being of a different branch of the church of Naga."

"So you managed to get some of your friends to take the day off work to come drop in on me, is that right?" Nah asked, not sure if she truly believed that this was Brady's idea but not wanting to show doubt toward Maribelle's story out loud. "And then you showed up, and I decided to ignore most of you because you brought a friend of mine along."

"That was also Brady's idea, he said that it would never work if it were him that came with, so we needed to pick someone else with ties to the church. Her inclusion was entirely to get you to open up to someone about things. But clearly, all you needed was to be stuck watching a movie with me in order to make that happen." Maribelle cracked her eyes open to look over at Nah, who had turned her attention to the movie on the screen at mention of it. "What scene are we at?"

"The one where the girl asks for forgiveness from her god and gets blinded as a result of the holy light that shines down on her. Her bathing of damnation, or whatever they called it." Transfixed by the scene, Nah found herself thankful that she wasn't met with a resentful Naga punishing her in divine ways, but rather a group of women who'd been pulled together by someone allegedly acting on her son's behalf. "It's pretty heavy-handed, even for this type of movie, but we'll just deal with it, won't we?"

"In the original novel—because yes, this was a book first years before it became a movie—the punishments were much more graphic, but so too was the behavior that earned her them in the first place." Still looking at Nah, Maribelle took in a shallow breath, before following that statement up with, "Personally I felt that they could have done without some of the violent imagery, even in the toned-down version the movie presents. Sometimes, the punishments people receive are best to be heard about secondhand."

Nah winced as she kept watching the movie, and when the scene with the light and the blinding came to an end, she shook her head to clear it but found that the dazzling bright flash was still prominent in her mind. "Yeah, with all of this that's been going on, I think I could've done without that scene being shown to me again," she admitted. "It could have easily been me in those shoes."

"Over being kissed without consent? Naga would never punish you for that behavior, the punishment should fall squarely on the shoulders of the person responsible for the decision and who acted poorly in the moment." While it rubbed Nah the wrong way to hear someone talking like she had personal experience with knowing Naga's divine rulings, she was glad that someone was able to speak those words into the world for her to hear. She knew she needed to not blame herself for the actions that Morgan ultimately took, even though she'd been a huge part in him thinking they were okay to begin with. He'd forced himself onto her in front of that camera, he was the one who was in the wrong.

They quickly entered into a strange silence, with both of them looking from each other to the movie and back again. It was incredibly fitting that they had such a relevant movie on during their time together, but at the same time it only seemed to be compounding issues because the moral of the movie was basically the opposite of what Nah knew the moral of her story needed to be. This film ended with the girl finding love in a new church, which ignored all of her previous teachings and beliefs, and Nah was actively trying to save her (former?) friend from falling into the clutches of the "bad" church of their religion. "You don't think that Naga will shun Morgan forever after this, do you?" Nah asked, her voice quiet as she knew she shouldn't have been trying to make anyone feel bad about him. "I mean, I know Lady Tiki isn't ever going to let him set foot in our church again, but…"

"He will absolutely find his way back to the light. I feel, once his parents know about what he has chosen to do, they will steer him straight." Maribelle tutted, tapping her fingers on her leg as she thought more about what could be done. "It astounds me that, all this time, he has been able to be his strange self with such well-rounded parents raising him. Then again, I suppose the same could be said for Brady, given that he is quite the character and yet he comes from a family with noble ambitions."

They were back to talking about Brady, it seemed, and Nah was slightly thankful for the return to a less awkward topic. "I don't think who someone's parents are really matters here, because everyone's their own person. Everyone gets to grow up in ways that work for them, and they get to turn into whatever kind of person they choose. Brady's a kind man who just looks mean on the outside. And Morgan looks nice and innocent, but he's troubled and needs a lot of help getting back on the right side of life."

"You speak so highly of my son, and I fail to understand why you can continue to do that, time and time again." Her nose scrunching slightly, Maribelle gave Nah a very pointed look. "Is there something you would like to tell me about how you feel about him?"

"As he's said to you before over and over, we're just friends. We just care a lot about each other, because we're friends. And that's what friends do." Clasping her hands together, Nah looked at Maribelle and gave her a determined nod. "Is there anything else you'd like me to spell out for you, or do you have it?"

Her jaw dropping slightly at the way she'd just been spoken to, Maribelle collected herself and gave a nod. "Yes, in fact, there is something else I would like you to 'spell out' for me. When I told Brady that we were making this meeting happen, and that it would be ladies only just to keep you and your mother comfortable, he gave me a single message to pass along to you but refused to elaborate on what it meant."

One of Nah's eyebrows raised, followed immediately by the other one. "What sort of message was it?"

"All he said was twenty-seven. No context, no elaboration, just a single number. Said you would know what he meant, and Dinah, I feel you may be a smart girl but there is no way that a number without context makes any sense to you." Yet, after saying that whole explanation for why she felt the message was weird, Maribelle got to watch the look of acceptance and understanding cross Nah's face.

That was because Nah, in all of the drama and conflicting emotions and miserable experiences she'd been having in the past week, had figured that once the word got out that she was kissing another guy, whether consensual or not, the whole agreement with Brady would be null and void. She never once thought that he would not only still keep their deal in mind, but that he would move the goal posts another year closer to where they currently were in life. "I'll have to tell him what I think about that next time I talk to him," she said after giving the entire thing some thought. "But, on that note, is he free next Tuesday night? I need him for something."

"He has plans every Tuesday, Dinah," Maribelle reminded her in a tone that first came off as condescending, then slowly changed to one of concern. "Plans with that friend of his that he is no longer allowed to interact with."

"Yeah, I figured you'd throw that down on him, which is why I'm asking if he'll be free. I need someone to keep me company, to lessen the blow of losing that friend time." Nah hoped her lying wasn't blatantly obvious, but when Maribelle didn't give her a solid answer in return, the results were inconclusive. So, she doubled down on trying to get a plan in motion and said, "I'm planning on getting things together to start my own game, like the one we'd been playing before all this happened, and Brady's such a good friend that I'd love for him to help me out."

"If it is for you, he may choose to do just about anything. You can ask him yourself if he has plans for that night."

Nah's fingers twitched at the thought of texting Brady right then to see if he would be down to help her with what she wanted to make happen—but she refrained from doing it. She needed to give everything time, to let women back off and give her space to breathe and cope with what she'd gone through, to let all of the people who'd heard the details process them and move on. Asking Brady right away would only lead to rash decisions being made, but if she waited…well, perhaps she'd be able to get things back to enough of a state of normal that they could just go back to playing their game.

Now if only things would ever work out that way, but a girl could dream!