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?

5. (In)Considerate to Consider Things

As she drove off from Ribbon's house the next Tuesday, there was a lot on Nah's mind that she couldn't ignore for too much longer. One thing was the whole situation that had happened inside the store with Severa, and how she needed to address one aspect of that with Brady when she got the chance; the other thing related back to Morgan and the dragon statue, and how feral he'd acted about it. She'd stupidly brought it up at the manakete dinner, asking about the truth regarding those statues, and while Nowi was mortified that it had been addressed yet again, Lady Tiki seemed happy to explain the significance of them in manakete history and why they were not acceptable to be in the presence of Naga-fearing folks, because they were a symbol that degraded her.

"It's odd," Lady Tiki had said, stroking her chin with a delicate finger, "because I hadn't thought once of those statues in years, and now they've come up several times in the past month. I fear that a resurgence of worshippers of the Fell Dragon may be upon us soon, and if that is to be true…let us hope that those devout to Naga can set them straight."
The silence that had fallen over the group of older manaketes in the dining room after that had been said was unforgettable, as was the appearance of Lady Tiki's shaky finger being pointed toward Nah as she stared back at her. "You, Dinah, you have the makings of a great manakete, if you can put an end to the teachings of the Fell Dragon."

Nah had no idea of how she could possibly do such a thing, but she had a sinking feeling that she was close friends with someone who was getting a bit too invested in the world that Lady Tiki was afraid of. "I'll try my best to do that," Nah told her, crossing her fingers under the table to make her words non-binding. "I'll do whatever I can to protect the church from this crisis or whatever it is."

That conversation had lingered in Nah's mind for days, and now that she was driving back to Morgan's house, she knew that she needed to talk about it with him because he was the person she was worried about. It just didn't make sense for him to have wanted that statue back so badly if it weren't the case, and if by some miracle she was interpreting things wrong, it was apparently on her shoulders to make sure that Morgan didn't fall into the darkness of the Fell Dragon. The issue was that she didn't have the slightest idea of how to bring that up with him, without it coming off as being preachy. "Eh, I'll come up with something eventually," she said to herself as she turned into the neighborhood. "I always do, even if it isn't quite what I need."

When she pulled up outside the house, the only other vehicle present was the one belonging to Brady, which gave her hope that she'd be able to tackle that conversation first and foremost. But after she'd parked and gotten out to investigate if Brady was still in his car or if she'd need to meet him inside, she was met with the unmistakable sound of someone crying—and she knew exactly who it was, and where it was coming from. She came up to his driver's side window and tapped on it, watching it slowly roll down to reveal Brady inside, tears staining his cheeks and his eyebrows furrowed. "Don't worry about it," he said to her, not changing his expression even slightly as the window went right back up.

Unable to get any words out while she wasn't blocked by the glass, Nah did what any self-respecting person would do and tapped on the window again, allowing the cycle to restart itself. "Congrats, Brady, but I'm worrying about it. Something happen with your mother that we should be aware of?"

This time the window stayed down, if only just far enough that the top of Brady's dark-haired head could be seen. "This is nothin' to do with Ma, somehow."

"Then is it really worth crying over?"

The window lurched up again, before coming down to better expose Brady's face once more. "Yeah, actually, it's pretty worth cryin' over! I'm losin' one of the people I'm closest to in the whole world, and I'm handlin' it the best way I can!"

One of Nah's eyes twitched as she thought about the person that he was most likely talking about. "She's not a great person, Brady, we're all better off if—"

"I ain't talkin' about Sev! I know she's back, and I know she's been causin' trouble for lots of people, but I swear this ain't about her." He drew in a deep breath, before unlocking his car and motioning for Nah to go around and get in with him. She lingered in her spot for a moment, considering what it would look like if they were caught in the driveway together like that, before running over and jumping right in. Once they were both in the car, he rolled the window back up and locked all doors tightly. "You didn't hear this one from me, but somethin' big's happening tonight and I'm not ready for it. Don't think Morg's gonna be ready for it either."

Nah's vision blurred for a second as she spaced out, thinking about who Brady could possibly be referring to, but when it struck her back into reality, she visibly jumped. "This is about Owain, isn't it?"

"From what he told me, him and Sev got to talkin' over the weekend and he's wanting to follow her off to wherever-the-hell it is she's been livin', just so he can chase down adventure after realizin' how boring Ylisstol kinda is. Not that I blame him, dude's livin' in the middle of nowhere and refuses to come into the city because he thinks it'll squash his chances at adventure, so why wouldn't he just up and leave like that?" Tears were rolling down Brady's cheeks as he was explaining what he'd heard, and Nah felt just bad enough about listening to him recount someone else's news that she didn't know how to respond. This was a happy thing for their adventure-seeking friend, but if she expressed that, then she knew she'd offend Brady by diminishing his feelings on the matter.

Instead, she reached over and gently pat Brady's shoulder several times. "I get it, it's going to really suck that your best friend from childhood has finally decided he's old enough to leave home, and has chosen to act on that by leaving the country. But if there's any indication from your ex-girlfriend, it's that coming back to visit is completely on the table. We all know Owain's going to be unable to keep himself away from here forever."

"Well, yeah, he's gonna miss his parents and his family and his friends and be chargin' back the second he can, but the fact that he's leavin' just kinda sucks." Brady gave a sniffle, leaning his head over onto Nah's hand, which did nothing but drip tears onto her fingers and make her cringe at the feeling. "But don't tell anyone I told you, let him tell everyone and you've gotta act shocked and surprised when he says it."

"I figured that was going to be the case anyway. Thanks for giving me the warning ahead of time, Brady, because if I heard this one without any knowledge, I might've laughed at the absurdity of the whole thing." Her honesty may not have been appreciated in that moment, but neither was being cried on so Nah felt that it was a bit of a getting-even situation they had going on.

It took a few minutes for Brady to calm down enough to feel comfortable with talking about anything else, and of course when he was finally able to speak without sobbing, he went right for the thing that Nah had thought his tears were about. "Sev told me she ran into you at the store this weekend, said that you picked a fight with her and she wasn't sure why you were actin' so nasty with her."

"That's definitely not what happened, but she can continue living in her delusional world if that's what she wants." A grimace appearing on Nah's face, she turned to look away from Brady in case her truth offended him. "Let's just say she went off on me for things that I was completely unaware of, then doubled down and called me some nasty things. Did I retaliate? Of course, I'm not a pushover, but she definitely started it."

"Not doubtin' you one bit, because it isn't like you to just walk up to someone in public and start a scene like that. She's gotta understand that puttin' you down at me isn't gonna do anything about how I think about you." Brady paused, giving Nah just enough of a moment to hope that something good was going to follow that. "Also, I kinda knew it wasn't true when she said that you were callin' yourself my girlfriend at her."

Those hopes were dashed immediately, even though the statement that was made was so bizarre and unlike herself that Nah did crack a smile at it. "Yeah, we've been over that before, tax benefits when we're thirty. I wouldn't call myself anything but your friend, even to try and get under Severa's skin. So I'm glad that you knew she was lying to your face, but it sucks that she was able to get someone else on her side in all of this too."

"Right, that's still a thing we're gonna be dealin' with tonight. Just…remember, I didn't tell you a thing, you're hearin' it all from Owain for the first time." Miming zipping his lips, Brady waited until Nah did the same motion back before he shut the car off and opened his door. "Well, enough just sittin' here going nowhere, we should get inside and get ready for tonight's session."

"I'm right behind you," Nah told him, opening her door and stepping out in time with him, their doors slamming shut simultaneously followed by the honking of the car lock. She remained behind him all the way in through the front door of the house, where it wasn't Morgan meeting them, but rather Lucina, looking at them both with a shine in her eyes.

It was several moments of silence before Lucina coughed to clear her throat. "Morgan's not home yet, he said he needed to go to the library to do some printing and Mother took him. I said I'd be here to let the first people in, but that's as late as I can hang around tonight. I've got plans with Gerome."

"You know, Lucina, sometimes it feels like you still live here, with how often you're here when we show up on Tuesdays." Nah stepped out from Brady's shadow and looked up at Lucina, who laughed at what she'd said. "Well, it's true. If I hadn't heard stories of people getting lost going to your place, I wouldn't think it exists."

"What can I say, I'm devoted to making sure I keep in touch with my family. Something that I'm sure both of you understand quite well." Whether that second sentence was sarcasm or not, they couldn't tell, but Lucina seemed to be playing it straight. "I still have my bedroom and a good number of my belongings here, so it kind of is like I still live in this house, even though I spend just about every night somewhere else."

"Somewhere that Gerome ain't staying too, if you're always goin' out with him for dates and plans and stuff," Brady remarked, only to get Lucina shaking her head at him. "What? Come on, you're really tellin' me you live together too?"

"Only sometimes. He's still got a lease to live out before we can officially move in together. I mean, he probably could just end it early and pay off those fees, but we're deciding if we want to pick his place, my place, or find somewhere of our own." Lucina looked around the living space there at the house, at how spacious it was, and shrugged. "I'm leaning towards the third option, since I'd prefer to live somewhere more like this, or at least more like the house his parents have in Ferox. I know neither of you saw that place, but it was really, really nice inside, even if the outside could use some work."

Realizing that they'd not only distracted Lucina from needing to leave, but had invited her to start gushing about her life plans, Nah decided that she needed to tap out of the interaction and wordlessly walked over to the table, sitting in her spot. Brady noticed this, then looked back at Lucina to see her looking surprised at how she'd just been abandoned like that, and decided that he was going to be the one to end things properly. "I bet it's about time for you to get goin' to your date, don't you think?" he asked her, watching as that realization dawned on Lucina as well. "We'll see you around, yeah?"

"Of course! Give my cousin a hard time when you see him, I feel like I never cross paths with him these days and it's seriously getting old." Lucina waved farewell to them both, collected her things, and headed out the door, and the moment she was gone Brady was back to sniffling, her parting words striking him in a nerve he wasn't prepared to have hit.

"Get over here, and calm yourself down before someone walks in and thinks I'm making you cry," Nah called, patting the chair that Brady usually sat in, but he didn't seem to be listening to her. He just stood in place, crying for a few minutes, before choosing to sit on the other side of the table instead, as if he was trying to avoid physical closeness with Nah.

On one hand, she understood completely, given that he was upset and probably didn't want to risk her trying to hug him to comfort him. On the other hand, it felt like a personal attack that he was changing up his spot after she'd asked him to come sit down, rather than just go with it and let things stay somewhat normal for the time being. She blinked a few times at the empty chair next to her, before her eyes slowly drifted over to where he was sitting, watching as he leaned forward and rest his head and arms on the table. The sounds of his sniffling and attempts to calm himself down were loud enough to drown Nah's thoughts out completely, both a blessing and a curse to her.

Morgan wasn't the next person to come in, either. That ended up being Laurent, who stepped into the living area of the house, heard that there was crying, and muttered something very loudly in a different language before coming to the table. "Based on your proximity to one another, I take it that this is not your fault in the slightest?" he asked Nah, who nodded in return. "Understandable. Is there anything that you would like me to do for you, now that I'm here?"

Brady either didn't realize that he was being spoken to, or he simply didn't have anything to say in response, because he continued on with his sniffling instead of providing any sort of meaningful conversation. "He's seriously been like this since I got here," Nah said, hoping that she wouldn't need to elaborate further.

"I would assume that it is a big deal, whatever is bothering him, but given his crybaby nature, that assumption might be too much to make." Laurent looked between Nah and Brady's crying figure several times before taking his usual seat, pulling out his materials for the game they were about to play. It was only when he'd gotten everything set up that something clicked in his mind and he was looking at Nah once more. "How are we in the house without Morgan being here?"

"Lucina was still here when Brady and I showed up, she let us inside and told us that her brother should be back eventually. Pretty sure she mentioned him going to the library."

"I see. Given how often he is going there, we may need to chip in and buy him a personal printer and ink to print with. I shudder to imagine the costs of printing he's accrued since beginning this campaign." For being so analytical and methodical, it was nice to hear Laurent coming up with a simple, easy-to-manage solution to a perceived problem.

Before Nah had the chance to say that thought out loud, though, they all heard a car door slam, followed by a banshee-like scream that came immediately before the front door to the house slamming open and Noire barreling inside. "I wish that vile woman would leave me the hell alone!" she seethed, coming to the table as quickly as she could before draping herself over Laurent's shoulders and beginning to sob nearly as loudly as Brady still was. "I have spent all day being dragged around like her little pet, and for what? For being reminded of how much of a total failure of a child I am, that's what! I wish I could just slice her open, watch her blood pour out of her wounds, laugh as she dies at my blade, that sort of thing!"

"One, you're starting to let Zelaia mix more into your personality than you probably should," Laurent pointed out as he awkwardly began to pat Noire's shoulder and back as she kept sobbing, "and two, you could have used coming to assist with the build as an excuse to avoid spending time with your mother."

"Don't you think I tried that? She's just the worst, I can't escape her even when I really want to, and I always really want to!"

Even though the yelling and crying was right in his ear, Laurent attempted to stay as neutral-sounding as possible, using restraint in getting heated for himself. "Calm yourself, Noire, you're far too worked up right now."

"Far too wo—are you kidding me? That woman is vile, Laurent, you know this!" Throwing herself off of him, and nearly taking his arm off in the process, Noire slammed herself down into a chair next to Laurent before glaring across the table at Nah, who was merely watching what was happening. "What's with the smug look there, manakete? You want to rub it in that you've got a good mother and I don't?"

A lump formed in Nah's throat as she tried to speak, not liking the animosity with which her background had been slung at her. She knew that she was in the minority of their overall friend group when it came to having two decent parents, at the end of the day and despite their shortcomings, but she didn't like that the fact that she had a solid relationship with her mother was being used against her in that way. "I wouldn't ever think of rubbing that in at anyone, especially someone who's experienced as much parental abuse as you have. All families are different, but yours is a special case, and I recognize that."

"Cut the psycho-analytic crap and tell me exactly what you want me to hear, so that I can rip you apart for it!" Noire bellowed, her eyes going dark for a second as she seemed to completely lose herself in her anger. "I didn't come here to be yapped at by your stupid ass about anything, but here we are anyway!"

Stammering, unsure what she was supposed to do when she was being torn into like that out of nowhere, Nah looked to Laurent for support, but he seemed just as shocked at what Noire was doing. "I-I'm not really…I can't say there's anything I want you to hear?" Nah finally said, realizing that staying silent wasn't going to do her any favors. "I just get that you have problems with your mother, that's all."

"Making it sound like it's my fault, not hers!" At once, Noire threw herself onto the table, reaching for Nah with her outstretched arms; it was at the sound of her literally clawing her way over that Brady lifted his head and picked himself up, standing just tall enough to be able to firmly reach over and grab Noire's shoulders. She shrieked unintelligible words as he pushed her back toward her seat, where Laurent had collected himself enough to guide her back to sitting.

"I'm not gonna pretend like I know what's goin' on here, but that? That's not what we're gonna have happen tonight. You sit back down and calm yourself before you try talkin' to Nah again, got it?" Even though he was still somewhat choked up as he spoke, there was a commanding nature to Brady's voice that made it impossible to ignore, even though Noire certainly tried to mouth off at him again and again until she finally did calm down.

The four of them ended up having nearly half an hour of silence between them all before anyone else came to join them, it being both Owain and Morgan coming in through the front door unaware of anything that had taken place previously. "Sorry for how late we are, the library was crazy and then Owain showed up and I rode over with him instead of Mother, so that she could get some shopping done or something, I don't know." Morgan waved his stack of papers around over his head as they approached the table, slowly noticing the somber mood that was shared around its edges. "What gives? Aren't we excited for tonight's session?"

"Excited is far from the word any of us would use," Laurent replied, choosing to speak for the entire rest of the group despite not knowing all of the details across the board. "Perhaps we could have an abbreviated session this evening?"

"That actually sounds like a fantastic idea," Owain chimed in, "because I've got something I kind of need to discuss with my comrades in the campaign and it might take a bit of time to get it all out and settled."

"Uh, sure, we can make things shorter tonight, if that's what you all really want." No one was about to argue against the idea, with all of their personal issues they were grappling with, and after settling on a time to wrap things up, Morgan pretty much shoehorned them right into the meat of the night's session.

Nah's mind was still reeling with the anxiety of being screeched at by Noire, as well as the ache of seeing Brady so distraught over his friend's pending disappearance, so she wasn't at the top of her game all night. Combat was choppy at best, and her quips and interactions with her fellow players were slow and half-hearted. "Farona, you seem distracted, is there something that can be done to put your mind at ease?" Laurent, as Plume, asked her character, and she could visualize the oversized cat-man curling his pawed hands underneath his chin as he looked at her elf. "You simply seem unlike your usual self."

"I'm fine. Everything's fine. Don't you think you have someone you could be trying to kill for dinner or something?" Farona shot back, as Nah gave Laurent a look to tell him to back away from her and her character in that moment.

"I suppose there may be a goblin or two that I can flay for dinner. I'll check in with you again later."

"Don't waste your time with it, honestly." It wasn't that Nah didn't want the interactions, because she loved getting to play Farona off of the other players and their characters, but she just couldn't bring herself to play the role convincingly. She was bothered, and she was letting it bleed into her playing.

This was something that was obvious to everyone around the table, and so when the session was called slightly earlier than they'd planned for, Morgan made his reason clear. "I still don't have any idea of what happened before me and Owain showed up, but I know that it's something big that's bothering all of you. I've never, and I mean never, heard you guys sound so upset about things in my life."

"I might've had a breakdown and done some things I shouldn't have," Noire admitted, hanging her head as she waved over in Nah's direction. "Mostly being a complete and total bitch toward my best friend, but what else is new."'

Nah nodded, not wanting to verbally second that statement but wanting to be clear that Noire wasn't just making things up as an excuse. She looked at Morgan, who scrunched his nose as he thought about what that could have been like to be around for, before turning her attention over to Brady, who was firmly looking at Owain. "My mind's all sorts of places that ain't here, honestly," he explained, finally prying his eyes off of his own closest friend to look back across the table at Nah, meeting her gaze for a second before turning it to Morgan. "Sorry about that, but it's the timing of it all."

"What's eating at you, big guy?" Morgan asked, a deliberate choice to not look for further explanation about what had happened with the ladies to focus on what seemed like a more harmless situation. "Is this about your mother and your violin again?"

"Uh…if it's what I think it is, it's why we're ending things early to begin with." Owain, with a big grin on his face, seemed to be a little apologetic with how his eyes kept shifting around, but the expression spoke novels about how he actually felt. That was, well, not upset at all about what he was about to drop on the group. "So, yeah, time for me to tell you all the incredibly amazing plan I've been building the past few days."

"Spare us the dramatics and get to the point," Laurent said, waving a dismissive hand at Owain. "Some of us have already far surpassed our quota for dumb things this evening."

With a nod, Owain stood up from the table, stepped a few paces away from everyone, only to jump and turn around at once, landing on the floor with heavy feet as he waved his arms around excitedly. "I've decided that living life here in Ylisse is just getting too boring, so I'm heading out with Severa when she goes back to Nohr and seeing what they've got to offer me there instead!"

He let his arms hang in the air for several tense seconds, while everyone still at the table stared at him with equal parts annoyance and surprise—except for Brady, who had buried his face at the first mention of life being boring. At once, all of their voices began shouting out questions and concerns, some of them curious as to why he was going while others were worried about his mother and father and how they'd be taking him leaving. He didn't answer anything that was lobbed at him in that moment, merely walking back up to the table and putting his hands down on Brady's shoulders.

"Get your mitts off of me, you traitor."

"Yeesh, that's a bit harsh, don't you think?" Owain did as commanded and instead side-stepped over to Morgan, where he did the same action and wasn't met with such a gruff response. "Sorry that I'm throwing our whole campaign into disarray on this one, but Severa's made some really good points and I couldn't just let her have all the fun out in the world, now could I?"

"I mean, you easily could have," Morgan huffed, giving his cousin a side-eye of disgust, "but I get it. You and Roshan are kind of similar in being total boneheads, after all."

Laughing, Owain replied, "I'm really going to miss being the embodiment of 'no thoughts, head empty' here with you guys. You'll all have to carry Roshan's goals and dreams in my place, if that's cool with all of you."

There were some murmurs around the table about the possibility of making that happen, but Brady lifted himself up and glared at his friend once again. "If you think I'm gonna spend my time over here playin' this game without you, you're dead wrong, Owain. You're not allowed to leave us and expect for everythin' to stay fine."

"Whoa, you want me to give up the chance for adventure because of a game? Which I guess is kind of about adventure itself, but…" Owain shook his head. "Not important! You can't abandon your team because of me. Byacek can't abandon his team because of Roshan. You get it, don't you?"

"Before you make some snarky comment back, I've already been thinking about the possibility of someone finally leaving town or moving too far to get to weekly sessions," Morgan cut in, seeing that Brady had opened his mouth to respond. "I've actually been doing a lot of research on the idea of taking the sessions virtual, and there's a bunch of resources we can use to make playing possible even with the distance. All we'd need is a computer each and a way to talk, and we'd be set."

"Sounds fantastic! I don't have a personal computer and I'm not using my work laptop to play with you guys." Nah hated that she was being pretty quiet in the whole situation and was now putting a knife into what Morgan had come up with as a solution, but she was going to stand strong on that stance. There was no way that she was going to get into any sort of game on the laptop the school district had given her, and she wasn't about to drop a fair amount of money on a computer she'd be using once a week at most. "Is there any way that it could work on my phone?"

Morgan shrugged. "Didn't look that far into it, but I bet it would. Although, since you're not planning on leaving town too, I bet you could just go over to someone else's place and share computers with them for sessions." He pointed at the other three at the table, all of whom shook their heads back at him. "Wait, what? She can't hang with any of you?"

"My computer is Mother's as well, and she prefers to keep people out of her office if she can help it," Laurent explained, before gesturing toward Noire. "And I think Noire's situation goes without saying, but she would most likely be coming over to use the computer I just described, given that she's one of the people Mother trusts with her plans and whatnot."

"Ma hates Nah and would probably blow a gasket if she saw her comin' into the house, and I'm not figuring out some way to lug my computer somewhere that isn't my desk. That's what I get for buyin' a desktop to play games with a gods-damned traitor." Brady's last sentence was clearly aimed at Owain, who finally looked somewhat sheepish for the chaos he'd now caused.

Taking all of that in, Morgan slowly nodded, before his eyes widened. "Lucina's got an old laptop up in her room I've never seen her use. I bet she'd let you borrow it for the occasional session, now that I think about it."

"I'd rather not borrow your sister's computer without it being her telling me I can do it."

"She'll let you! Bet she'd only let it happen if you're using it here, though." Pursing his lips together, Morgan finally shook Owain off of his shoulders, only for his cousin to try grabbing them again. A second brushing off was enough to get him to realize he wasn't wanted there in that moment, and once he had a clear path, Morgan got up from his chair and began pacing around the dining area. "I think that'll work out really well, actually. Me and Nah can hang out here, Laurent and Noire can be together at his place, and Brady'll be at his house, which leaves you and only you, Owain. What are you going to do?"

"Seems like I'll be joining you guys over the computer, however it's going to work! Here I was, convinced that the saga of Roshan was over, but it might just be getting started!" Even though he sounded happy, like nothing was wrong at all, everyone knew based on the look on his face that Owain recognized how much everything was needing to change to accommodate him. He seemed like he'd accepted that he was being a pain in everyone's lives just to chase adventure, but now he was getting the chance to still be a part of things despite abandoning them all.

Nah stood up as well, feeling like she was ready to get out of that house and away from all the drama that had transpired that night. "Well, if this is the last time I see you before you go, I hope your whole move ends up going smoothly," she said to Owain, him looking at her puzzled as she spoke. "I can't say I'm exactly looking forward to taking this to a digital version, but we'll make it work somehow, I'm sure."

"What're you talking about, you're going to see me again this weekend, aren't you?" Owain voiced his confusion, only to be met with a similarly-puzzled look coming back at him from Nah. "The baby shower? Or…whatever it is that Severa decided she's calling it, to justify inviting guys to it?"

"I wasn't invited to any baby shower," Nah replied immediately, knowing that she still hadn't had much clarification about what was going on with that. "Glad to know that it's something that everyone else is on the loop on except me, though."

Morgan stopped pacing long enough to wave in Nah's direction, telling her, "I've been invited but I'm not going because I wanted to work on planning stuff for future sessions. Maybe you can come over here while they're all doing that and we can figure out the laptop business together?"

"Eh, I appreciate it, but I'll pass. Either I'll get a late invitation or a nasty, scathing call berating me for not showing up to something I wasn't invited to in the first place." Shrugging flippantly, Nah began walking to the door, ignoring the calls of her name from everyone else trying to get her to stop. She only addressed them as she was putting her shoes on, looking over at the group with a forced smile. "Look, it's not a big deal that Severa's forgotten about inviting me. She knows what I think of her, I know what she thinks of me, there's no love lost between us and it's honestly best this way."

It would have been a lie if Nah didn't acknowledge how she looked at Brady more than anyone else while speaking, watching him stare back at her without saying a word in her direction. "I'll see you guys around," Nah continued, shoes firmly on her feet and ready to take on the outside world. "Because I know that we'll all be together again, someday."

That time, she didn't let any of their calls get her to say something else, and she headed out the front door without a single regret in what she'd just done. Naturally, that meant spending most of the drive home teary-eyed as she processed the fact that she was the afterthought in the group, the person always considered last for things. At the very least, she wasn't going to be excluded from further sessions because of her lack of computer, and the fact that Morgan had jumped to borrowing his sister's computer for her sake did tell her that, despite his weirdness and strange behavior at times, he did care about her somewhat.

When she got home, the house was oddly quiet, and she came inside to a dark living room, Nowi nowhere to be seen. "Mom, you awake?" Nah called out, voice somewhat unsteady from her emotional ride home, but also because she wasn't used to her mother not being on the couch watching her movies. When she got no response, she tried again. "Mom, seriously, are you awake or did you forget I wasn't home?"

There was still no noise in the house outside of her own breathing, so after locking the front door and checking the entire lower floor for any signs of life, Nah scrambled up the stairs and pressed herself against the door to her parents' room. Their light was visible through the crack at the bottom of the door, and thankfully Nah was able to hear discussion on the other side. "You don't think she's going to start getting ideas about doing that, do you?" she heard Nowi ask, a question obviously about Nah herself. "It's a slippery slope, seeing everyone else do it then doing it yourself too."

"She has a good head on her shoulders," Gregor replied, which brought a small smile to Nah's face, hearing her father speak positively about her. "Any decisions she makes will be her own, not decisions made because of others."

"I really hope you're right, but something tells me that you might not be. It's just…that's a big, difficult choice for anyone to make, but especially a manakete. And in the year of the dragon, too. I just think it might happen because others are doing it, and she'll be helpless in stopping it." There was an unusual seriousness to Nowi's voice as she spoke, which struck Nah as strange but she felt compelled to keep listening in to see if she could get any explanation for why that was what they were discussing in that room.

There was no further talking, though, and after a few minutes of just listening to her parents shuffling around, getting ready for bed that night, Nah decided that her time was better spent going into her room for herself. As she went, she couldn't help but process what her parents had been discussing, trying to piece together what had happened in order to get them to start talking about something so mature and serious. In fact, Nah wasn't sure what had prompted things but she did know that she was going to prove her parents wrong. After all, she knew what they were talking about, even if she hadn't heard the beginning of the conversation.

And if her parents were convinced that she was about to start following in her friends' footsteps and having children before she was ready, then she was going to prove to them that she could be a grown woman without dragging herself down in that way.

---

Rash decisions were not Nah's strong point, even if she was a bit predisposed to making them thanks to the personalities of her parents and how she'd been raised. That didn't mean that she wasn't able to make them, but instead that she was fairly bad at making them unless she was super into the idea behind making them in the first place; of course, that meant that she was rarely good at making them at all. The last time she'd jumped blindly into making a decision and hadn't thought twice about it until it was already said and done had been when she'd planned a party for her friends, and that had been nothing short of a disaster in getting it all organized without losing her sanity.

(Perhaps that fact about herself was part of why Nah felt so strongly about proving her parents wrong, because she felt that having children was quite a mature choice.)

At any rate, Friday when she went to Ribbon's school and spent the entire day working on updating paperwork in her office instead of making a young girl's life worse, Nah had a realization strike her after seeing the due date for some of the updates she had to complete. "Huh, my birthday's coming up soon, isn't it?" she remarked, before her fingers pulled away from her keyboard and she reached over to touch the date on the calendar beside her desk. "Wonder what Mom and Dad are going to buy me for the occasion. Knowing what they think, condoms, probably."

She snickered to herself for a second, thinking about the sheer embarrassment they'd all experience if that were the gift they wrapped their loveless daughter, before her finger trailed up to a date the following week. Tapping the square on the calendar of the following Thursday, she hummed a low note before shaking her head. "No, I'm going to be reasonable about this. I'll ask Ribbon what she thinks her brother might want for his birthday, then get him something at her suggestion. She's bound to know better than me."

Ribbon did not, in fact, have the slightest of clues as to what her brother would've wanted as a birthday gift. As they were pulling out of the school parking lot that afternoon, Nah having been asked to take Ribbon home out of convenience for her family, the girl had been presented with the prodding question and gave the most honest answer she could muster. "He's got so much in his life that I don't even know what I want to get him. I bet we could go to the store together and pick some things out, if you wanted, but I've got no ideas. I know what our parents are getting for him, though!"
"Your parents are getting him something?" Nah asked, genuinely surprised to hear that given what she knew about that family's relationships and how strained they often were. "Color me shocked. Want to tell me, or do I need to hear it from him myself?"

"It's more of his old game things, Dad said that they went online months ago and found a bunch of games that Yarne loved when he was younger than me, and they bought them so he can replay them as much as he wants." Ribbon shrugged, seemingly disinterested in what she was talking about. "I don't really get why he wants to play that old stuff, but that's his choice, not mine. I see people in videos playing some of those old games, and they're really boring. Don't you think they're boring too?"

"I wasn't super into video games at any point, so I can't really answer that one." It was true, Nah's parents had been pretty strict about what kinds of media their daughter was exposed to growing up, and in the era of video gaming being a huge force to reckon with, they'd fought hard to keep anything more money-intensive than mobile games out of their home. That wasn't to say that Nah hadn't played games at friends' houses or while waiting for after school events to get started, but she wasn't nearly as savvy about them as everyone else in her age group. "I do know that Yarne really likes his gentle games, though."

"Oh yeah, the super boring ones," Ribbon said, pretending to gag after her sentence. "He's tried to get me to play those with him, especially back when I was really little and he still lived at home, but I didn't like them at all." Her nose scrunched up as she looked at Nah, who was focused on safely making a turn rather than continuing the conversation. "I bet he'd like it if you got him a new game to play, that isn't one of those old games Mom and Dad are getting him."

While it was a suggestion, it wasn't one that Nah was going to do anything with. "I'll leave buying new games to him, don't want to get him something too scary that he'd never play. Besides, if I bought one—even for him—my parents would get all up in arms about it."

"Nah, I think your parents are more protective than mine, and that's saying something."

It was, truly, a bit embarrassing that a twelve-year-old girl would make such a statement about someone almost twice her age, but Nah played it off like it was nothing. "That'd be because I'm my parents' only child, whereas you have an older brother and a younger sister for your parents to have to care about too."

"Right, I guess that makes sense." Ribbon's voice grew smaller, and she mumbled something under her breath that Nah didn't quite catch, only for that to be the end of the conversation entirely. When she got out of the car at home, the girl didn't even thank her ride, merely gathering her things and getting up to her front door as fast as she possibly could.

Nah let her car idle in front of the Leichtfoot home just long enough to see that Ribbon was able to get inside before she was driving once again, knowing that she had nowhere else to go but her own house at that point. Along the way, she thought about the question she'd asked and the answer she'd been given, and how it hadn't helped her in any way that mattered. "I'll think about it over the weekend, then come to some conclusion about what to do Monday or something," she decided, hoping that she'd remember that was the decision she'd made.

Fate had a funny way of playing tricks on her that weekend, though, and Nah woke up the next morning feeling completely under the weather, her face aching with how full her sinuses were and her head pounding from a headache like none she'd ever experienced before. By Sunday night, she was feeling even worse, with a moderate fever on top of it all to make her have to call off work for the first time in her life. Monday and Tuesday both were washes of days, and she felt horrible that she'd needed to not only call off work a second time but that she'd needed to call Ribbon's parents and let them know that she wouldn't be taking their daughter home that week.

However, she didn't feel quite as guilty about needing to text Morgan to let him know that she was coming down from illness and couldn't make the session, especially when his response was that there wasn't going to be a session anyway and that he'd forgotten to tell her that fact. "Well, that's fortunate," she muttered, setting her phone aside so that she could focus on resting up instead of getting into a fight over being an afterthought on information being passed along.

By Wednesday morning, she felt well enough to go back to work, although she was quite lethargic and spent a lot of time before heading off to the school in her bathroom, steaming out her face with a piping-hot shower. By midday, she was regretting her decision to go in after all, but she knew that putting students on the backburner any longer wasn't a great idea, especially since she needed to make a difference in their lives when she had the chance. But, even though she was forcing herself to be physically present, she knew that she wasn't doing her best work in reaching the high-needs students in the ways they needed.

When she got home that night, she barely had the energy to say a word to her mother before she was trudging up the stairs, feet dragging like she couldn't lift them up from the floor for more than a second. She changed into her pajamas and crawled in bed, fully intending on sleeping for the whole night and being prepared for the next morning, when her door came open and Nowi walked inside the room, hands on her hips looking concerned. "You're not hiding anything from me, are you?" she demanded, leaning forward to try and seem more forceful in her questioning. "This sickness feels like it's coming from a place of guilt, or shame, or maybe even regret."

"Mom, seriously, I work with children, they're germ-infested little brats and they're coming up on a break, they're all sick throughout the school. It was only a matter of time before I got what they've been passing around." In her bed with her covers pulled up to her chin, Nah gave her mother an unamused look. "The only place of 'regret' I'm getting this sickness from is the same place as regretting getting my degree."

Nowi stood up taller, shaking her head as she came closer to her daughter's bedside, before sitting down next to her legs. "I want to believe you, Dinah, but there's…been a lot of talk at the church about some less-than-ideal decisions being made by members of our community and I want to make sure that this isn't Naga smiting you for doing something dumb."

"I swear that I haven't done a single thing that'd make Naga disappointed in me, especially not to the point to give me the respiratory crud that schoolchildren thrive with." Nah wasn't actually sure how the rumors she knew her mother had been hearing would equate with getting this sort of illness, but she'd long since accepted that Nowi wasn't the brightest of women. "I'm just living my life and doing my job, and this is the price I've paid for it."

"As long as you're sure you're not doing things you're going to wish you hadn't," Nowi said, patting Nah's legs a couple of times before standing back up. "If you get hungry, we've got a bunch of soup downstairs. Lady Tiki heard you weren't doing well and had some of the ladies put together a care package, but most of it is stuff that your father took with him for lunches this week. All that's left is soup and some juice."

"I'll think about it if I feel up to it. Thanks, Mom." Nah didn't actually want to thank her mom for anything, but she knew it was what was right to do in that moment, and it got Nowi out of her hair that much faster. As her door closed, she sighed and closed her eyes, sinking her head further into her pillow and hoping that sleep would take her sooner rather than later.

It was a double-edged sword, falling asleep so late in the afternoon as opposed to waiting until it was a more reasonable time. Nah did wake up for a late dinner and slunk down to the darkened kitchen to reheat some of the soup from the manakete ladies, and enjoyed it with a nice glass of orange juice that was clearly home-squeezed, given how much pulp and how many seeds she was contending with to swallow it down. She then sat on the couch, still feeling tired but having her mind wide awake and racing with all the things she needed to get done before returning to bed, and turned the TV on to see if she could find some sappy movie or old show to watch a bit of before heading back upstairs.

The channel it had been left on was the main channel for the cheesy romance films that she knew her mother loved, and Nah chuckled to herself as she watched the opening credits for one she'd actually seen before roll across the screen. "Oh man, I remember when they first premiered this movie years ago," she said to herself, turning the captions on so that she could enjoy the movie without needing the volume up too loud. "I remember that me and Noire had a sleepover right here, and we watched it with Mom and talked about how the romance was so unrealistic. Good times, good times."

Twenty-five minutes into the movie and Nah's eyelids were beginning to grow heavy, as she curled up under a blanket on the couch to try and muscle through more of the… At the mere mental reminder that she needed to be strong and make her way to the end of the movie, she shot back up, all tiredness temporarily erased from her mind. "I was so focused on not dying this week that I forgot all about getting Yarne a present," she groaned, right as the strapping male love interest in the movie showed up for the first time, an exchange student coming from a war-torn region where he was one of a handful of living bachelors left alive. "I'm seriously the worst friend ever if I forget to do anything for him."

At least she was awake enough to finish watching the movie, but after the ending (in which the male exchange student and his hockey-loving bride rode off into the sunset, their destination a small airport to charter a private flight back to his homeland), she felt like she wasn't going to sleep at all until she solved the problem she'd put off until far too late. Sitting on the couch under her blanket as she stared at the promos for the next cheesy movie about to begin, Nah found herself blinking slowly, processing all of the mistakes and problems she'd been through that week in order to put her exactly where she was. "I bet if I explained why I didn't do anything for him, he'd get it, but at the same time…would I accept that sort of excuse if it happened to me?"

She picked herself up off the couch, folding the blanket and draping it over the arm of the furniture before turning the TV off and heading for the stairs, taking the steps one at a time as quiet as she could. The last thing she needed right then was to wake either of her parents up and need to explain that she'd been downstairs far longer than necessary just to watch a stupid movie (although she knew that Nowi would fully support that decision). Thankfully, her careful movements were enough to keep their door firmly closed, and she was able to get back into bed with relative ease and lay awake for a long while, thinking about how she was going to dig herself out of her current hole.

Somewhere along the way, she fell asleep, her dreams vivid with anxious decisions and activities that she'd never take part in while awake. When her alarm went off, she cracked open her eyes to see that she was, in fact, back in the waking world, before turning the alarm off and pulling herself out from under her covers to get ready. Without a single solid direction for how she wanted to approach her current predicament, Nah accepted that she might have just made the quickest turnaround from "really good friend" to "absolutely horrible person" that she could possibly have done. If something were to save her from the problem she'd created, she didn't know what it would be or where it would come from, but given that it was her supposedly lucky year, perhaps it would be possible.

Salvation came in the form of a push notification on her phone that arrived right at the start of her lunch break, after half a day spent wrangling children for their extra lessons and filing more paperwork. The mere presence of the notification was usually an annoyance, given that ordering lunch to any of the schools she worked at was a bit of a nightmare, but when Nah saw it that afternoon, it was like a message directly from Naga. "I wonder…" she started, swiping the notification away as she grabbed her lunch and rushed out of her office, finding an empty, unused room to dine in that day.

Once she didn't have an audience to entertain, she continued her thought, speaking it aloud to make sure it didn't sound as crazy as it felt it was. "I wonder if my card information ever got deleted after last time. I bet a nice dinner on my dime would be a great gift, and one that doesn't have to happen tonight if they don't want it." A smile started to creep across Nah's face, her feeling like she'd just solved a puzzle that had been intended to stump her forever. "Bet there's only one way I can check that, though."

After shoveling a couple of bites of the previous night's soup into her mouth and swallowing it cold, having forgotten all about reheating it, she grabbed her phone again and scrolled through her contacts, finding one that she hadn't interacted with in months and hovering over the call button. The thought of being a burden and calling at a bad time crossed Nah's mind, but she knew that merely sending a text wouldn't necessarily be enough, especially if her message went unread for too long. She couldn't leave everything up to chance right then, so she silently apologized to Naga for putting things off like she had before pressing the button and putting the phone on speaker, hoping that she'd get an answer instead of a voicemail box.

It felt like it was ringing forever before she was, as she feared, sent to voicemail, which she chose not to deal with and hung up before the tone was given. But before she was able to try calling again, her screen lit up with the return call coming at her, and she accepted it and put it back on speaker in an instant. "Uh, is something going on or was this a really weird pocket dial?" Kjelle's confused voice asked on the other side of the phone, as if she hadn't answered initially because she was surprised at what she was seeing. "Last I heard, you're not even at Ribbon's school today, so I…you know, don't think it's anything to do with that."

"Nope, nothing to do with Ribbon, but not an accidental call either," Nah replied, giving a laugh at how those were the two options that were given. "I didn't interrupt anything by doing this, did I?"

"I mean, just some studying, but I've got time to get that done. It was almost time for a break anyway, so this might've been my excuse to take a bit longer away from the class." It took Nah a second to realize what in the world Kjelle was talking about, before remembering that she'd decided to start on chasing her dreams and getting into some sort of program for physical trainers. "So are you going to tell me why you're calling me, or are we going to sit here going back and forth for a while?"

Nah blinked once, trying to piece together the exact train of thought that had led her to making the call in the first place. "Right. I've been sick this week and forgot all about getting something together for Yarne's birthday and was—"

"No, you're not going in on what I've gotten him."

"—that wasn't what I was going to ask, but I'm glad that you're keeping whatever that is to yourself. Pretty sure I don't want any part of it." Once again, Nah tried to get her story in order to fully explain what her intentions were. "Like I said, I've been sick and hadn't gotten anything for his birthday, but then I remembered something that you might be able to do for him, for me."

There was a moment of silence, before she got a laugh as a response. "Look, I'm sure there's a lot I can do for him on your behalf, but it's all going to require money, and…"

"And that's why you should hear me out on this, okay? I promise that if it works the way I think it will, it'll be my money you're spending, and it'll be worth it for both of you." Nah felt like she was having to be a bit forceful, but she understood that it was originally coming off as her asking for Kjelle to buy something on her behalf. "Are you ready to listen to what I thought up?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Okay, so, remember when I snagged your phone and ordered lunch for Yarne and the guys under your name but with my card? Did you ever remove my card from the list of payment methods on there?" It was a total shot in the dark, and Nah knew that, but the answer she got wasn't anything close to what she was anticipating.

At the very worst, she thought that she'd get told that the card information had been deleted, and at the best she'd hear that it was still there. "I don't think we've used my phone to order anything since then? So I don't see why it wouldn't still be on there?" Kjelle sounded unsure, and her words were followed by the obvious sounds of Nah being put on speaker for some investigating to happen. "Yeah, it's still the most recent payment method on there. Are you seriously offering to buy us dinner as a birthday present?"

"Given that I'm still somewhat sick, and I doubt you'd like me sharing my germs in your house, yeah. That's exactly what I'm offering." Nah knew she couldn't be seen, but she smiled at the phone anyway, hoping that her generosity was being taken seriously. "It's just about the only thing I can do this late, after all."

"I'll be honest, this isn't something I ever expected getting called about. You're not saying this now, just to dispute charges when we do order something, are you?"

"Do you really think I'm that kind of scumbag?"

"True, you're not the type of person to do that. Thanks for this, Nah, I think it'll really make Yarne feel better about things for at least one night. He's all sorts of stressed and worried and working himself too hard—you know, things that have always been typical for him, but have only gotten worse lately. Bet you can't ever guess why that might be." As if right on cue, something happened outside of the range of the phone's receiver, followed by Kjelle sighing deeply. "I've got to go take care of that. Sorry to cut this short, but…thanks, Nah, we really appreciate this gift."

"No prob—oh, she's already gone." Nah looked at the ended call screen and her smiled faded a little, although her spirits were still lifted from how she knew she'd done something good right then. A free meal, without any stipulation for how much it could cost or where it needed to be from, was always a welcome treat to people. She could only imagine that it would be doubly welcomed by a couple that needed a night to stop worrying about all of the other things going on in their lives and just get to enjoy themselves. "Well, if she really takes me up on that offer, I'll know sooner or later when the money gets pulled from my account."

With that good deed done, she focused on eating her cold soup and watching clips from movies cheesier than the one she'd spent the previous night watching, inwardly grimacing at how bad some of those movies were. By the time her lunch was over, Nah had come up with a short list of movies she needed to sit her mother down to watch, and a shorter list of movies that she wanted to watch on her own, and she was feeling good as she went back into her office to tackle the second half of her day. Even still, she had the present and the call lingering in her mind, as if she was anxious about how the whole thing was going to turn out, and if there were going to be any issues on making it work out.

The only word she got about things not going according to plan was a single text message later asking her for her card's expiration date, but even then that was a simple question to answer and hopefully an easy problem to have solved. It wasn't until much later that evening that she got a second text, coming from a different number than the one she'd been communicating with before, thanking her for the meal and for her kind gesture to pay for it outright. Replying to Yarne's thank you (which she could tell had been typed with teary eyes, given how many weird punctuation marks had made their way into the body of the message) was honestly harder than just about anything else she'd done that day. But still she made it happen, wishing him the happiest of birthdays and going on with her night knowing that she'd done a good deed.

Despite her not saying a word of it to her mother, Nowi seemed to figure out that Nah had been up to something over the course of the day, and when they joined together to watch an episode of an incredibly trashy "real" romance show, she simply had to do her best to get all the information. "I heard that you were buying things for others today," she said, catching Nah by surprise at how matter-of-fact her tone was. "Not that that's a problem, I mean, you're such a giving woman that it makes sense you'd do that, but…why not buy something for us?"

"We've still got Lady Tiki's soup, we don't need to be spending money on food right now," Nah replied, not sure how this had become the topic of conversation. "Maybe once it's gone I'll think about buying dinner. Sound good to you, Mom?"

Nowi took in a deep breath, letting her shoulders rise as high as she could get them, before blowing out all of the held air and letting herself deflate. "I suppose, but I'm getting really tired of having soup around here."

"You're the one who accepted the manakete care package, not me."

"I suppose that's true. Come on, Nah, why are you always so reasonable and mindful about finances and that sort of thing? Can't you just treat yourself for a change?" The answer Nah knew her mother wanted, and the answer she would inevitably give, were two vastly different answers, but she couldn't just drop her morals to break loose and have fun. It wasn't her style, much like being spontaneous and reckless wasn't in her typical wheelhouse.

Their conversation fell flat there, until they were partway through their episode and Nah looked over at her mother, having decided that her curiosity needed to be satiated. "How did you know about me buying something for Yarne, anyway?"

"Oh, you know, word gets around," Nowi knocked her head gently from side to side before laughing. "And in this case, it was his father asking me if I was aware that you'd bought them dinner tonight."

"…I bought them dinner?" Nah repeated, eyes going wide as she reached over to grab her phone, opening up her banking app and logging in to see that yes, in her pending charges was quite the hefty amount waiting to be withdrawn. "I mean, should've seen that coming, but I was expecting to just buy dinner for two people, not an entire family."

"Guess your giving heart got the best of you on this one." Winking at her daughter, Nowi watched as Nah tucked her phone back away and grumbled something under her breath, which was met with another laugh. "I bet you'll think twice about letting someone buy things with your money, won't you?"

"It's not the end of the world, I've got more than enough to cover that several times over. It's just unexpected how much money they spent on dinner, that's all." Honestly, if Nah had thought it would potentially happen like it did, she would've been much clearer to Kjelle about who all she was willing to pay for dinner for, but the whole family getting together for dinner for Yarne's birthday shouldn't have been as much of a surprise as it was. "But this means we're waiting even longer for when I'm buying us dinner, sorry."

Nowi's mouth opened slightly as she went to say something, then thought twice about it and closed it right back up, putting her hand on Nah's shoulder instead. "I think I understand why that's the case, and I accept it. I don't like it, but I accept it nonetheless."

As they got back to watching their episode in relative silence, Nah couldn't help but start to think about what things her mother wouldn't be so accepting of, and she wondered if moments like this between them would be ruined if she did venture down a path she shouldn't explore.