June 2nd, 2026

Asking everyone to take two days off in the middle of the week was a tall order, but asking several of them to do it two weeks in a row was unheard of. That was the exact thought that Nah had when she'd been told that she was going to be forced to not go into work for two of the days on the last week of school, and it didn't matter if she had ceremonies she needed to attend those days, because she simply would not be attending them. That was a hard conversation she had to have with the administration at the schools she wouldn't be supporting those days, but there was a little something on her side that helped make it easier.

Or, perhaps, a someone a bit higher up in ranks, who was just about to step down from her spot after all of her years of service on the school board so that she could focus entirely on the law side of her job. Now, in Nah's defense, Maribelle hadn't been thrilled with the choice of days either, but the moment she'd found out what the plans were, she swallowed down her pride and said she'd do all she could to make sure that the plans could be pulled off successfully, without anyone losing their job over it.

"I do have to ask, though, why does it have to be those two days in particular?" Maribelle's tone was curious, as she looked at Nah for an explanation. "As much as I dislike it, I understand why the next week is what it is, but this one seems rather random."

"You'd have to ask Noire on that, since she's the one in charge of all of this," Nah replied, thinking about how hard it was to parse her best friend's thought processes on the regular, let alone when planning something big, exciting, and mostly secret. "All I know is that we're leaving town that morning, and that we're getting back the next night. I don't even know who all's going to be there, that's how little I know about it all."

And that was how little Nah still knew until that morning, when bright and early a car pulled up to her parents' house and waited for her to come outside. She'd been sitting on the steps, looking out the window waiting for some sign of things happening, and the moment she stood up to get downstairs, grab her bag, and go, she was stopped by the sound of her mother's voice at the top of the stairs. "You're not going to do anything stupid while you're out celebrating with your friends, are you?" Nowi asked, shaking her head as she looked down at Nah. "I mean, that's typically what happens on these sorts of trips. People do stupid things, relationships get ruined, you might even find someone you like more and—"

"Mom, you're not going to get me to drop everything and find another manakete to marry, sorry." Looking over her shoulder to see how Nowi was standing there, Nah forced a smile in her direction. "I get that I'm your precious child and that you really don't want to see me grow up, but you've got to let it happen. There's only one more week of me living here, don't you want it to be a happy week?"

Nowi sniffled dramatically, coming down a couple stairs to get closer to Nah. "What do you mean, one week? You're going to be gone today and tomorrow, that means there's even less than one week left!"

"Now you're just being silly. I'll see you when I get home tomorrow, and I'll tell you all about how different this was from the movies." Nah gave her mother a wave before fully descending the stairs to gather her things. By the time she was at the door with her bag in tow, Nowi was down on the main floor, and she refused to let her daughter leave without giving her a big, lingering hug.

"Don't let yourself get in trouble, there's only one week until the wedding, after all." There was a sadness in Nowi's voice, proving that she truly did not want her little girl growing up, but she was able to let go and watch Nah leave to join her friends out in the waiting car. She did stand in the doorway and wave the whole time, though, watching everything that took place as Nah got her bag in the back of the car before climbing in to the passenger's seat, so that the driver could take off in a hurry.

"Nah, your mom's still as strange as ever," Noire commented as they headed down the street, her in charge not just of planning the trip but driving them there to keep the destination as much of a secret as possible. "I mean, I can't be a judge of that, my mother would rather see me dead than see me off like that, but…ladies? Any opinions?"

The silence in the car was incredibly telling, and Nah was almost thankful that no one wanted to jump in and say something on the matter. "It probably doesn't help that my mom has never wanted to let me go, and now she's kind of being forced to do it before she's ready. But I'm plenty old enough to be out from under her control, and she's just going to have to get used to that. Especially since…"

"Why are you making it sound like this is going to be the end of you spending time with your mom?" Half-awake in the back seat (which was partially why she hadn't said anything before), Cynthia reached out and attempted to put her hand on Nah's arm, but couldn't quite reach and ended up grasping at air for a few swipes. "If it's anything like what happened with me, moving out made me closer to my mom! We do weekly baking classes now, it's a lot of fun and good quality time."

"I don't do baking classes with my mom, but we're closer than we ever were before," Kjelle added, not lifting her eyes from whatever she was watching on her phone. "Your mom's just going to have to find a different reason to stay close with you."

Noire pursed her lips together, keeping her focus on the road, but it was clear that she was very much on the other side of the argument—and no one was going to blame her for it. Still, Nah could see that the positivity about mothers was making her friend uncomfortable, and so she decided to put an end to the conversation right there. "Yeah, we'll see what happens after this wedding and everything. But, today, what exactly are we doing?"

The two ladies in the back gave a chorus of uncertain answers, while the driver kept her mouth firmly shut. "Right, I take it that I'm not going to know until we're there. Does anyone in here actually know, aside from Noire, that is?" This time, the chorus in the back answered positively, which told Nah that she was the only one remaining in the dark about what the day's activity was going to be. "Right, okay. Looking forward to doing some historical sightseeing, then."

"You'd actually find that fun, wouldn't you?" Kjelle asked, finally putting her phone down to lean over and look at Nah up front. "Not saying that it wouldn't be interesting to do with all four of us together, but that's honestly a hard pass from me."

"I wouldn't have agreed to a night away from my children if it was something as boring as that," Cynthia laughed, resting back against the window and closing her eyes. "It's something fun enough to make that headache worth it."

None of this was providing any clarity for Nah, and she was getting a bit frustrated with the secrecy. So, instead, she went in the direction of boring and lame, to see if she could figure things out by saying what she hoped it wasn't. "Well, I would enjoy doing some historical site touring, but I know, not everyone's cup of tea. I'm going to guess it's nothing to do with much physical activity, given that I wasn't told to pack anything meant for hiking or exploring. Swimming's a possibility, since I was told I needed a swimsuit, but there's plenty of beaches in Ylisse that it doesn't exactly narrow anything down."

"We're not going to the beach, it's too sunny and I don't want any of us burnt before your wedding," Noire said, giving just a little bit of an answer for Nah to work with. "Imagine everyone laughing at us because we're all toasty and red."

"Y-yeah, manaketes are pretty notorious for not tanning very well." Tapping her chin, Nah thought of all of the fun places that they could have been going, but quickly realized that she wasn't actually aware of much to do outside of Ylisstol itself, beyond the boring stuff that had already been turned down. She wasn't going to know the destination until they were there, she feared, and that was going to make the drive less fun than it should have been.

Once everyone was a bit more awake from their early departure, conversations began being struck to pass the time. It was mostly about excitement regarding the wedding, about how everyone was looking forward to the rehearsal dinner and the ceremony itself, about how the guest list was nothing like it had been originally planned, about how a lot of things had fallen apart in the last weeks but new things had come up that were honestly better. There was a bit of discussion about how the venue, the manakete rec center, was going to be decorated and prepared in time, a discussion that Nah had to stop because she didn't want anyone thinking they had to help, when Maribelle had already made it clear that she was going to be in charge of that aspect of things. There was even some talk about if Severa was going to come in from Nohr and make things chaotic, as she was apt to do, but when it was made clear that she was only attending if someone invited her as a plus-one, everyone seemed to think that was for the best.

"I mean, if he really wanted to, Owain probably could bring her with him, but he's got so many others he can bring, doesn't he?" Noire asked, glancing over at Nah for a split second to see if she had anything to say on the matter. When she got a violent shake of the head in return, she knew that she was on the right track. "Yeah, what I heard from Laurent is that Owain's bringing a bunch of other people with him…"

"And there's a chance that one of them will try sneaking Severa with under our noses, but we've begged him to keep her out of it. There's no reason for her to be here for this, she doesn't like me and it'd just be weird if she was there." No one was ever going to argue against that, given that Severa had quite the history with both people getting married. "So I'm looking forward to seeing who all Owain is bringing, because he wasn't sure who would be coming with him."

Now that the mood had been soured a little, talking went back to happier subjects, which mostly involved children. That was the part where Nah found herself unable to really be involved in the conversation, not because she didn't like children, but because she didn't want to say anything that made anyone start suspecting anything. Her plan, which she'd made very clear to her family and Brady and his family, was that she had zero intentions of ever actively looking to have children, especially in the age of social media where people would be downright nasty about it. There was no way she was going to tell that plan to all of her friends, though, because she didn't want their opinions or them trying to convince her to think otherwise.

For someone who looked perpetually like a child, it was merely the best option she could think of. There were just some things that people as young-looking at her should avoid, and that felt like one of them. But Nah had no idea that she was about to encounter a second thing that she should've avoided, and she had no way of knowing that it should've been a skip until it was too late.

After several hours on the road, a glimmering oasis began to shimmer on the horizon, growing brighter and visually louder with every moment that passed. "Okay, so, we're almost there," Noire started, turning the car off the main road they'd been driving on to head closer to that bright spot in the distance. "Nah, have you ever been out here before?"

Looking at the scene before them, Nah thought back to the ill-fated trip she'd taken with her parents, where they'd driven right by this very spot and she'd been warned of the dangers it held. "I've never been this way, no. That's…uh, that's a casino, isn't it?"

"It is, but—"

"My parents will kill me if I go in there. Apparently there was this whole thing when I was a baby that my dad lost money there or something, and swore to never return? I don't remember the details, but I know that they don't want me getting into that sort of thing." Pulling a disgusted face, Nah began to feel like she'd been unwillingly signed up for the worst thing she possibly could have to endure. "We're not going there, are we?"

"—I mean, yeah, but not to do any gambling!" Raising her voice, Noire seemed agitated as she continued speaking. "I put all this thought and planning into doing something exciting and different, and you're acting like you're not going to go along with it!"

"What else is there to do at a casino except gamble, then?"

"Uh, a lot, especially at this one." Kjelle spoke over Noire making further agitated noises, trying to keep things at least a little calm in the car. "Last year, we all came out here to celebrate Yarne's mom's birthday, and I don't remember anyone feeling like they had to go gamble. Did we, though? I mean, maybe a little, but it wasn't something that I chose."

Also trying to keep things from getting more heated, Nah decided she wanted to play along a bit and dig into the story that had just been started. "What do you mean by that?"

Kjelle shrugged. "I mean that when you're sitting there drinking with your parents and they shove a bunch of money in your hand, you just kind of…go and use it."

"Why were your parents there if you were here for Yarne's mom's birthday?" Cynthia asked, continuing the trend of keeping Noire from getting an angry word in.

"Look, I don't know why they're all buddy-buddy with each other, but she invited them along and none of us thought twice about it." There was a moment's pause where Kjelle seemed to think about what she was choosing to tell them, but she didn't let it bother her as she continued anyway. "It was a pretty good time, from what I remember. Yes, we all stood around and watched the taguel try to use their 'rabbit luck' to win, but that definitely didn't happen, and it wasn't even the biggest part of the day. We walked through their aquarium, spent time at their indoor pool, had a fancy dinner, got completely trashed with my parents… Seriously, I woke up in our hotel room with no memory of how I got there, because apparently I got lost in the casino and ended up waking Yarne up to have him to come find me. Glad something like that's not happening tonight."

It took a second, but at the conclusion of the story, Cynthia blinked a few times in confusion. "Wait, I thought this place was child-free, so how did all of you get to come?"

"That'd be thanks to me and Mom," Nah answered, knowing that she'd been aware of this part of the story from the moment it had started. "We took all the kids in for the night, mostly because they rightfully didn't trust Ribbon with the job. That was the night that Mom and Ribbon both made the mistake of calling me Dinah in front of the littles, and I'm pretty sure Tjana still calls me it, even now."

"She does, she'll ask all the time to go see her Di-na-a-a-a-ah." Putting on her best impression of a bubbly two-year-old, Kjelle couldn't help but laugh after she'd finished. "Look, the whole point of what I said is that there's a lot to do here that isn't gambling, so as long as you don't get tricked into drinking, you'll have plenty to spend time on."

Finally, Noire was able to get her words out, obstructing any other conversation with her loud outburst. "But I went ahead and got money for everyone to throw at machines! That's something I intentionally chose to do, it's literally in my pocket, if you don't use it I'm going to be seriously mad!"

"Well if you're providing the money, and it's not me gambling away my savings, I don't see as much of a problem with it," Nah quietly said, putting her hand over on Noire's shoulder to try and get her to calm down about things. "But I'd like to be able to do things that are more in line with my interests while we're here, since playing games isn't really it."

"I also booked us space at their spa tomorrow morning, since tonight was all taken and I figured it could be something we do before we leave." With a deep breath, Noire's mood seemed to shift back to its normal, peaceful state. "I'm really excited to get to share this experience with the three of you, we're going to have such a great time doing all of this, I just know it!"

What Noire failed to mention was that her booking of their room for the night, while it was an upgraded suite so that they could check-in upon arrival, instead of needing to wait until later in the day, only provided them with two beds total, and the only other place in the room for someone to sleep would have been a hard leather chair in the corner. "I take it we're sharing beds, unless someone wants to sleep on the floor, in which case…we're still sharing beds, but only two of us are." Before waiting to see what anyone else wanted to do, Nah walked into the room and staked her claim on one of the beds, which she felt was right given that she was the reason they were all there. "I'm sleeping here. Where all of you sleep, I don't care, and that includes sleeping here with me."

"As your best friend and maid of honor next week, I call sleeping in your bed!" Jumping into the room, Noire threw her bag down in the leather chair as she sat on the bed next to where Nah had put her things. "So, ladies, if you want to figure out what you're doing with that second bed, that'd be great."

The other two looked between each other, then at the bed, then both went peacefully to sit on opposite sides of it. "We're both not strangers to having to share beds," Cynthia pointed out, "which I think means that we'll have a lot of fun fighting over blankets and space."

"Trust me, I'm used to making myself pretty small in my bed, you won't have to worry too much about me," Kjelle replied, elbowing Cynthia in the side as she spoke. "This already feels like it's got more space than what I've got at home."

"That got settled a lot easier than I feared it would," Noire admitted, scratching at the back of her head. "When I saw that all they had were rooms with two beds, I was worried that we'd have a huge fight and need a second room and that'd cost so much extra money, but I guess that's what you don't need to worry about when you're such a great group of friends!"

No name needed to be said, yet all of them knew exactly who Noire was alluding to with that statement. It was a nice change of pace that this hadn't become an activity for all of the ladies in their social group, and instead it truly had been tailored to just the people who genuinely liked Nah and wanted to spend time with her. Usually, she was left trying to form bonds with others while they were stuck talking to people who weren't her friends, and so for this to just be her friends was huge. "We're a great group, yeah," she agreed, looking around the room at the other three. "And we're going to make this best night away we possibly can, but we're doing it like mature adults, okay? None of that typical bachelorette party nonsense, no cakes and decorations and awkward props and—Noire, why are you looking so sad?"

It was true, as Nah had been speaking, Noire had begun looking sadder and more distraught, and when her name was mentioned she tried to mask it as best as she could. "I, uh, might have brought along some of those novelty props, because I thought they were funny," she admitted, gesturing toward her bag. "But we don't have to use any of them! I'll save them for the inevitable next time someone gets married, it's not a big deal!"

Stunned, and unsure of how she was supposed to take that information, Nah went over all the possible options of what was in the bag before deciding that she'd be rude to not humor Noire at least a little bit. "Okay, well, the only things I'll allow for myself are a sash and a tiara, but I doubt you have either of those things."

She was completely wrong, as there were sashes for all of them, and while there wasn't a tiara, there was a beautiful ornate dragon-wing clip that Noire pulled out from her bag. "This one wasn't my idea, but when I spoke to Maribelle, she handed it to me and said she expected you to wear it while we were here." Holding the clip up, Noire opened and closed it a few times before she went to put it high in Nah's hair, giving her head the illusion of having small wings. "She said she'd planned on giving it to you herself, but she said I could do it instead."

"That's really sweet of her," Nah said, reaching up to touch the jewel-covered metal that she was now wearing. "I swear, she's really come around on me in the past two years, if she's giving me gifts like this for no reason."

"No reason?" Kjelle repeated, while in the middle of untangling the sashes that Noire hadn't been careful in transporting. "She's accepted that you're who her son wants to marry and she's doing her best to make sure everything'll be okay between you. Trust me, that's a very good thing to have happen."

"I wasn't complaining about it, it's just…way different than it used to be."

Blue Sea Springs was a huge, sprawling complex of activities and luxuries, with the casino in the middle acting as a gathering place before people headed off to whatever they planned on doing. That meant that, if they really didn't want to get close to the machines, they didn't need to cross the wall that separated the walkways from the casino itself, and that calmed Nah's nerves on that matter immensely. Still, as they would walk around the exterior looking for what activity they wanted to take on, she would catch glimpses of machines with flashing lights and cute pictures, and her curiosity was growing by the minute. What was so interesting about them that it made people lose their senses when playing them?

It wasn't the right time to test any of them out, though, as there were experiences on the outside to be had. The plan was to save the pool for later in the day, so they could hit all of the sights that had earlier closing times first. That meant doing the aquarium, the art gallery, and the shopping mall, all while wearing those sashes that proclaimed their roles in the upcoming wedding. Never before in her life had Nah been stopped so many times by strangers trying to congratulate her—and never before had she and the others been accosted by security looking for their IDs so many times, either. "I guess we just look under eighteen as a whole group," Cynthia said after the first time it happened, a smile on her face as she said it. "But that's fine, looking youthful is always a blessing!"

The second time, it was still an exciting compliment to the ladies, but after that, and especially when it became mostly just asking Nah and Kjelle for their IDs instead of everyone (as they were easily the two that made the group look younger), it became more of a hassle than anything else. "Okay, when I was here before, I think being around my parents and Yarne kept this from happening this many times," Kjelle grumbled after yet another time where she'd had to stop moving to pull her card out. "Something about them making it obvious that I'm not someone underage in here."

"Oh, great, so that's going to be a problem if we end up somewhere just the two of us," Nah replied, feeling like that had just limited a lot of her night's activities. "I guess that tells us that we all need to stick together all night, no matter what."

The three words in that sentence that were meant to do the heaviest lifting were the ones that ultimately got ignored. It wasn't by choice, but rather by circumstances that spiraled out of control incredibly quickly, and it started not long after the single fanciest dinner that Nah could say she'd ever had. Multiple courses, waiters in formal clothing, appetizers and desserts that weren't more than a couple bites, bottle service that had many different wines and drinks offered and very few taken, it was all almost unreal. And when the check came and Noire confidently handed over her card to pay for it all, that was the cherry on top. "I'd researched how much this was going to cost and set aside more than enough for this very special meal," she explained, "and I'm glad that we were able to make it happen."

"I've never felt so fancy in my life, so thanks for planning this!" Nah clasped her hands together in front of her, nearly knocking over a half-empty wine glass that she knew she needed to finish off before leaving the table. She looked at what everyone else still had in front of them and quickly realized that she was the only one with a drink still unfinished.

As she downed that, she kept looking around to see if her friends had anything else planned for that moment, and she found that all of their attention had been drawn to somewhere else in the restaurant. Even when the waiter brought Noire's card back and she finished her payment, she wasn't fully paying attention to what he was telling her, as her eyes kept glancing elsewhere. Nah didn't know what it was that she was supposed to be looking at, so she set her now-emptied glass down, and tried to follow where the glances were going, but by then everyone had stopped looking in the same spot.

"That was weird," Cynthia said, shaking her head. "I could've sworn I saw…"

"No, I think you did see him," Noire added, disgust in her voice, "and if it's him, I'm going to be very angry because I told everyone that this is a girls-only trip!"

"But it wouldn't make any sense for him to be here, so I wouldn't count on it actually being him," Kjelle finished, an assertive tone to her words. "We're probably all just thinking about who's back home and you're probably missing him a bit too much."

"I know, but…"

"What are we talking about?" Nah asked, making it clear that she wasn't in on the potential person spotting, but nobody wanted to answer her. "Okay, well, if it's not important, then let's not dwell on it! Let's go change to go swimming, I'm ready to relax and soak for a little while before we find something else to do!"'

Since it was ultimately a celebration for her, no one argued against Nah's request, and they headed back up to their room, where everyone changed into their swimsuits and grabbed towels to take down with them (as they all brought their own from home, as opposed to needing to rely on there being any by the pool deck). Once they were all ready, it was a quick elevator ride down to the main floor, then a couple minutes' walk to the pool area.

The whole group never made it to the pool, as while they were on their way, the person they'd thought they'd seen made a grand reappearance, coming out from behind the casino wall with open arms. "Ladies, what are the odds of running into you all here?" Inigo asked, slowly stopping and dropping his arms when he saw that there were four faces ranging from confusion to anger staring at him. "Hey now, I thought that one was clever. Odds, casinos, gambling, you get it?"

"We sure do get it," Noire answered, beginning to allow venom to seep into her words, "but you're not supposed to be here, we're supposed to be here with just the four of us. Only ladies. Not you."

"Ahem, yes, I am aware of that, but I had something I couldn't quite wait any longer to do. The time for this was years ago, but I have been a foolish man and put it off for far too long." As if he was actually not aware at all of the reason for the trip, Inigo came closer to them, grabbed Cynthia by the arm, and pulled her forward, only to drop down in front of her. "My love, I'm sorry that I have made you wait this long, would you—"

She screamed and dropped down with him, throwing her towel over his face as she began hysterically sobbing. "Yes, yes, of course I would!"

This entire display was happening right in the center of the walkway, so people were stopping and staring at what was going on, but one person who was not interested in watching any further was Noire, whose eyes were both twitching in frustration. "I'm going to the pool, which was the plan for the girls-only trip I'm supposed to be on," she grumbled, stomping further down the corridor.

Side-stepping away as well, Kjelle said, "Yeah, I'm not particularly interested in seeing how this goes. See you at the pool, okay?"

Nah nodded but didn't move, even as two of her friends went on their way. She felt conflicted, not wanting to abandon Cynthia but also not caring for the fact that her party had just been crashed and overshadowed by someone else's decision. "Will the two of you pick yourselves up and get it together?" she finally asked, catching the attention not just of the happy couple but of many of the people around them. "I thought this trip was supposed to be about me, in the end."

"Sorry for the intrusion, Dinah, but it came to my attention that if I didn't do this now, I would be risking leaving my love unwed going into a season where almost all of her friends are married, and I couldn't dare do that to her." Doing as commanded and getting himself up off the ground, Inigo offered an apologetic handshake toward Nah, which she completely ignored and he sighed at. "I understand you're upset, but can we have this one moment?"

"There's so many other places and times you could've done this, coming to my party and doing it wasn't exactly cool of you." Rolling her eyes, Nah looked to Cynthia, who was enamored with the ring that had gotten slipped onto her finger in all of the chaos. "Now she's going to do nothing but stare at that thing because of you, are you happy?"

"Yes, actually, that's part of why I've proposed to her."

"I agree that the timing was horrible, but you really should've done this way sooner," Cynthia said, still staring at her new jewelry. "Besides, weren't you supposed to be in charge of the kids tonight? Where did you leave them?"

Inigo gave a laugh, showing that he didn't feel that any of this was a big deal. "I had originally wanted them present for the moment, but this place is against children entirely, even if they're unable to do much on their own. But I promise you, dearest, they're safe with your parents."

"Oh, it really would've been better if you'd waited to do this somewhere that Harlow and Soleil could've been with us, but I suppose them being with my parents is fine." Cynthia's eyes shone as she looked at Inigo, before grabbing him in a giant hug. "This was something I've been waiting for, and you'll never understand how long I've been waiting."

"I can take a guess as to how long, and it was wrong of me to make it last even half that time. Now I've righted this wrong, and we can do all the planning for the future later. Right now, it's time you get back to spending time with Dinah and your other friends." Inigo gave her a kiss on the top of her head, before trying to pry her arms off of himself, finding her grasp too hard to remove. "Cynthia, love, I need to drive home before it's too late to be on the roads alone. You have to let me go."

She did, albeit very reluctantly. "Come on, Inigo, my parents are more than capable of taking care of the girls tonight. You can just stay here and—"

"Nope, this is where I'm stepping out. If you're planning on inviting him to our room, I don't think that'll work, so if he stays, he'll need his own room." Nah hated that she'd just cut her friend off like that, but she was not about to force herself to listen to whatever kind of romantic nonsense was about to be suggested. "If you're interested in rejoining my party, we'll all be in the pool. Hopefully see you around later, Cynthia, and hopefully don't see you again until next week, Inigo."

With that being said, Nah stopped paying attention entirely to what the two of them were doing and went to go find wherever the pool area was. Even though it was late in the evening, there was still a steady flow of people heading to and from the water, so she was able to get there relatively easy; finding her friends in the water was a different issue entirely. It was fine by her, though, if she didn't find them physically right away, locating where their towels were piled and tossing hers on top (with her little bag with her phone, room key, and belongings underneath it) before making her way over to the hot tub. The weather may have been warm outside, but the pool area was kept chilled, so soaking in the hot water felt like it was going to be worth it.

It was, at first. Nah had just begun to let her body relax when she saw that there were casino security guards milling about, and she inwardly groaned, knowing that if they saw her, she'd be asked to prove her age, and that would mean leaving the warmth of the water. So, as she watched them looking around, she grew more and more tense, until they left the area and she felt like she could breathe a sigh of relief. "That would've been incredibly embarrassing, having to show ID at the pool, of all places," she muttered. "But if it's going to happen to anyone, it'll happen to me."

She stayed in the hot tub for a few minutes longer, then got out to see if she could find the others in the main pool. This time, it was easy because Noire was sitting up on the side of the pool with her feet soaking, while Kjelle was in the water right in front of her. "Oh, hey, took you long enough to get here," Noire said as Nah approached them. "Did you get roped into dealing with someone else's romance nonsense during your own bachelorette trip?"

"I've been here for a while, actually, just kind of…chilling." Nah pointed at the hot tub, which had even fewer people in it now than it had when she'd gotten in. "Turns out, if I'm in there, the guards don't even notice me."

"There were guards in here?" Kjelle asked, the surprise in her voice genuine. "Huh, I bet they were looking for someone specific, if they didn't bother either of us."

Nah sat down next to Noire, her feet immediately freezing when she put them in the water. "I didn't even think of that being a possibility, I just saw them looking around and got thankful that I brought my wallet with me, but upset that I'd have to leave the water to…" She trailed off as she noticed the confusion on Kjelle's face get replaced with panic. "Oh. No. Don't tell me…"

"I left all my stuff up in the room, if they were looking for me they would've been able to kick me out on the spot." Closing her eyes, Kjelle sighed before letting out a few mumbled curses. "I've got to go back up and get everything, just in case we're not so lucky next time."

As she grabbed the edge of the pool to try pulling herself out of it, Noire scrambled to her feet and said, "No, I'll go up, I'd just need to slip my shoes back on and I'll be able to get up to the room much faster than you can, with you having to dry off before you go. The two of you just…stay here while I'm gone, okay?"

"If you insist, I'm fine with that. Just be quick about it, you saw how many times we got checked earlier." Without any hesitation, Kjelle pushed herself back away from the wall and gave a huge smile at Noire, who nodded and headed to where their things were stored. "That's really nice of her, honestly. If it were anyone else, they would've told me I'd get there fastest because I can move fastest, so why not just do it myself?"

"Noire's right about it being faster for her because she's not wet. Which, on that note…" Nah interrupted herself long enough to slide into the pool, splashing the wall and Kjelle both with the wave she created. "Brr! Maybe getting into the hot tub first was a stupid choice on my part, this water's ice cold!"

Brushing the splashed water off of her face, Kjelle said, "No, it's been cold this whole time. Why do you think Noire didn't want to get in with me?"

"That makes sense, actually." Still, it was fortunate that things worked out in that way, and Nah wasn't going to complain about them. All they had to do was keep their heads down if the guards came back as they waited for Noire to return, and then once she was back they'd be fine if they got spotted. Being in the water made evading the guards easier, because when they did start patrolling the pool deck again, they just needed to stay under the water as much as possible, to keep themselves from being clocked as young-looking.

Like Naga was looking out for them, it was right after Noire had rejoined them in her spot on the side of the pool that a guard came by asking them how old they were. "I'm twenty-six," Nah answered, not a hint of deception in her voice. "I know, probably hard to believe."

"And I'm twenty-seven," Kjelle followed up, smiling at the guard. "Again, probably hard to believe, but it's true."

"I'm the same age as her," Noire said, pointing toward Kjelle, "and you already know that because you checked me on my way in here."

The guard chuckled and went on his way, and once he was out of earshot Nah asked, "Why did you get checked on your way in, if you were by yourself? We weren't there to raise suspicions or anything."

Noire shrugged. "I don't know, security's on edge right now about something. They even checked me when I got in the elevator to go up to our room, that's how serious things are. Which, because of that, it's doubly good that I decided I'd go up for you, huh, Kjelle?"

"Saved me from getting kicked out, so yeah I'd say it's great. Thanks a bunch for that, means a whole lot."

The three of them stayed in the pool until the sun outside the giant windows had gone down over the horizon, shimmering golden waves into the room as the light reflected not only off the pool's water, but the water off the coast as well. As the room began to be illuminated with the unnatural overhead lights, and a new flood of drunken swimmers came into the room, they decided to go change back into regular clothes and spend the rest of the night doing something that wasn't swimming. Just like Noire had said, there was a heightened security presence outside of the pool room, and they were all checked three times between leaving the pool deck and getting up to their room.

Since she'd only gotten her feet wet, after she'd changed into clothes and done some quick makeup, Noire told the other two that she was going to go down to the casino and hang out. "I'll keep an eye out for Cynthia while I'm down there, but I'll probably be playing games until you're back with me. Then I can give you both your money and you can play too, if just for a few spins."

"Please hold me to just a few spins, I don't want to find I really like playing," Nah said, wrapping herself a bit tighter with the towel she'd thoroughly soaked with her wet swimsuit. "We'll be down once we've both showered and changed, so don't expect us right away."

"Let me know when you're headed down, my phone'll be on me!" With that, Noire bid them farewell and headed out the door, inevitably getting her ID checked a time or two before she made it to her destination.

It was just about an hour later when the two still in the room felt presentable enough to go down to meet back up with Noire. There was a lot of joking about how the two of them had somehow ended up alone together, and with how many guards were around it would be a miracle if they made it a dozen steps before being accosted for identification. In talking about that, Nah had the idea of them trying to make themselves look a bit older, just to alleviate some of the issues, but after they spent a lot of time fiddling with the makeup and hair supplies available to them, it was obvious that there wasn't much they'd be able to change at all. The only thing that they successfully did was braid Nah's hair up and clip it with those jewel-encrusted dragon wings, which did make her seem less childlike, even if she still could pass as a teenager with her youthful face.

"I think we're just going to have to accept that we'll be taking twice as long to get down there as we should," Kjelle sighed, looking at both of their reflections in the mirror with a frown. "It's whatever, not like we set a specific time for when we'd be meeting Noire."

"I'll let her know we're leaving the room now, so that she knows to expect us showing up eventually," Nah replied, grabbing her phone and opening her messages—just to find that she had a message from a number not saved in her phone waiting for her. Saw you down at the pool. Hope to see you again soon, it read, with no indication of who it was from. The number felt strangely familiar, as if she'd seen it before, but she shook it off and chalked it up to being a wrong number text, so she went ahead and sent Noire that they were coming down and thought nothing more of it.

Together, the pair got as far as the elevators down to the casino floor before a guard asked them for their IDs, which they were happy to provide. That guard had a laugh at how dissonant their ages were with their physical appearances, even remarking that they were quite a small duo for being in their mid-twenties, but he let them onto the elevator without any issue. "Height doesn't correlate with age at all, and I wish people would stop assuming it did," Kjelle grumbled, leaning against the side of the elevator as it went down. "When I worked at the gym desk, I'd get asked all the time by guys if I was old enough to even use the equipment, since I'm so short. It was like, hello? Why does me being short matter?"

"I literally work with children who are taller than me, I get it." The number of times Nah had almost been corralled into a classroom because a visiting administrator didn't realize she was a staff member was uncountable, and even though it was funny when it happened, she still didn't care for it. "But I guess around here, they're trying to make sure no one's sneaking in while being underage."

"If she didn't look and act so young, I bet no one would question if Ribbon could be here, given that she's so tall." That was true, most likely, as Ribbon had always been on the taller side of her peers, and at fourteen years old, she was just about as tall as her mother and made the two of them in the elevator look like children, a fact that Kjelle probably knew better than Nah did. "But whatever, no one's accused us of faking our IDs or lying about our ages, so as long as that good luck continues…"

"I'd think that you, out of everyone, would know better than to mention luck. Then again, we are at a casino." Nah's face scrunched in amusement at her own little joke, while Kjelle rolled her eyes before laughing at it as well.

When they got down to the bottom floor and the door opened, both of them had their IDs at the ready, expecting to see a guard asking for them on the other side. They got as far as stepping out of the elevator and down to the main walkway before they were asked, and this time, there was salvation in the form of this guard having bright orange wristbands to give them, to stop the barrage of questioning. "They'll still want to check in case you want a drink, because legally they have to, but now any time someone wants to ask, just show them this and you'll be golden," the guard said, as she put the bands on each of them. "I don't know why everyone doesn't hand these out, but for ladies like you…I feel it's necessary."

"That was really kind of her," Nah remarked as they went on their way, feeling like perhaps the luck comment had worked in their favor, instead of cursing them to have awful luck with everyone that crossed their paths. "Maybe I'll decide to put more of Noire's money in the machines to see if it'll pay off."

"Dinah. There you are!" Four words, in a voice Nah hadn't heard in over two years, and just the sound of her name in that particular cadence was enough to make her flight or fight instinct kick in, and she grabbed Kjelle's arm as a defense. "What, aren't you excited to see me here?"

"Ow, nails in my arm, watch it," Kjelle said, seemingly not noticing the voice that Nah had heard, until she froze and her head turned slowly in the direction the voice had come from. "Wait, what are you doing here?"

Both women were now staring down Morgan, who was looking at them in return with the largest, most menacing grin he could manage. "When I heard that you all were here today, I couldn't resist coming and seeing if I couldn't make amends for my past behavior," he explained, holding his hands out in front of him to show that he wasn't holding anything, there wasn't any hidden agenda or weapon. "After all, I only have a week left to do that, don't I?"

"How does everyone know we're here?" Nah whined, clinging herself harder onto Kjelle's arm, while Kjelle mentally processed what she was listening to. "I didn't know we were going to be here until we got here, but apparently it was so obvious that Morgan found out before I did!"

"I can tell you, I heard about this from my sister. Lucina was so sad that she didn't get invited along, by the way, but she told me all about how she's excited for the wedding next week, so I know about that too." Morgan took a step closer to them, still holding his hands out. "So in two years you went from burning all your bridges with potential lovers to marrying one anyway, is that right? How'd you manage that?"

Despite her full-blown sense of panic, and her desire to be anywhere but where she now was, Nah found it within herself to answer that question. "I managed it because the only bridge I burned was the one with you, and everyone realized how manipulative you'd gotten with me. Haven't you noticed that no one wants to be friends with you anymore?"

"Oh Dinah, I still have many of the same friends you do, they just don't tell you they're still my friend." Another step closer, and with this one, the grin on Morgan's face faded, replaced with a dark expression that felt right at home on the cover of a book of tales about the Fell Dragon. "You're making a mistake, forcing yourself into this marriage you don't actually want. Rethink things, give me another thought, you know it'd be better if you did."

As he came closer still, Nah began to sputter, not sure how to say her rebuttal to his idea in a way that would be taken seriously. She wasn't forcing herself into anything, she'd gotten what she wanted with the person she'd wanted all along, and she wasn't sure how Morgan didn't understand that. She knew that people still talked to him, she knew that he still had friends that were her friends as well, but that didn't mean that she needed to like or even tolerate him. And, most importantly, she was happy with the life she'd cultivated in the past two years, there was absolutely no need to let him crawl back in.

Noticing that the person actively holding onto her like a spider monkey was unable to get any words out, Kjelle decided that she'd take charge and say something in her place. "Like anyone should ever listen to you," she started, slowly prying Nah off of her so that she could get closer to Morgan without endangering her friend, and once her arm was free she was right up at him, staring him down with a fierceness in her eyes. "All you're doing by being here is proving that you're never going to grow up."

"This isn't your fight," Morgan said, putting one hand on Kjelle's shoulder to try and push her out of the way, but in the split-second he realized how big of a mistake that was, she'd already taken action without quite having the same realization. Sure, kicking his legs out from underneath him meant that he went crashing to the ground, but with him holding onto her, it meant she went down too. It wasn't a problem for her, though, as she was more than happy to grapple him and make him beg for mercy, something that she was not going to give him by any means.

All Nah could do was beg and plead for them to stop fighting, and when security came to break things up and detain everyone involved until they had a clear picture of what had happened, it felt like the night was over. Morgan insisted he'd been attacked out of nowhere, Kjelle was adamant that he'd asked for it by putting his hand on her, and Nah had to explain that one of them was a lot more right than the other was. In all of the commotion, Noire somehow found her way to them, and she got to explain that she'd gotten strange texts from the same number that Nah had gotten them from, but her phone had saved former messages from that number and it was clearly Morgan doing some plotting that night.

He wasn't going to go quietly, though, as he was insistent that he'd been set up and gaslit into acting the way he did, but when the guards decided that they simply did not want to play mediators to this dispute and told everyone to just drop it and leave each other alone, he didn't seem to want to listen. "I'll be there next week to make you reconsider," he threatened, pointing a finger in Nah's direction. "You know, under the rules of the church of Naga, if anyone dissents to a union, they legally can't go through with it."

"If you so much as step a foot into the ceremony, I promise you that'll you'll be coming away from it in a body bag," Kjelle shot back, this time getting restrained by Nah and Noire both to keep her from getting any closer to Morgan and starting another round, even though she was being very gentle on one of her legs, her knee visibly bruised. "And I know that I won't be alone in beating your ass when that happens, and that's a promise."

"You're going to let her say these things to me?" Looking at the guards still standing around, Morgan realized that he wasn't getting any sympathy or support from any of them, and he kicked at the floor, conveniently in the direction of the trio of ladies. "This isn't the end of any of this, I hope you know."

"Uh, pretty sure it is," Nah said, finding her voice, no matter how shaky it was. "I'm happy with what I've got, with the life I'm planning on leading, and I don't need you in it ever again. If I ever have to see your face again, it'll be too soon."

The crestfallen look he gave when he heard her words was enough to fill Nah with the confidence to leave the scene knowing that the rest of her night would be peaceful. Together, the three ladies slowly made their way to the casino floor, where sizable handfuls of money were passed out, many drinks were ordered, and absolutely nothing notable was won by anyone until far too late in the night for some of them to really remember it. Even when she played the last bill she'd been given and came away empty-handed, Nah felt like the night had been rather successful, and she stayed up well past her usual bedtime to watch her friends play games and keep drinking until they needed to be taken back to the room.

She fell asleep just about immediately after laying in bed, and woke up well after sunrise to there being no one sleeping next to her. "Huh, where'd…oh, okay," she murmured, looking over at the other bed and seeing that Noire was half-dressed laying on top of what was left of its blankets. A moment later, and she was now trying to process how there was only Noire in a bed that she wasn't even supposed to be in to begin with.

With a yawn and a stretch, Nah sat up and looked around the room, which was a certified disaster zone. The missing blankets from the other bed were strewn across the floor, and Kjelle was laying on them, like she'd come into the room and fallen asleep without even making it to either of the beds. "I probably should have tried keeping them both more in check," Nah said to herself, shaking her head in amusement at what she was seeing. Neither of them were going to like being woken up so they could pack up the room and go to their spa appointment, she was sure of it.

She didn't want to disturb them, if they were in as much of a need of sleep as she figured they were, so she carefully got out of bed, got her clothes from her somehow undisturbed bag, and went to change into something fresh and new. Then, after grabbing her wallet and her phone, she decided she'd go down to the main floor and find somewhere to grab something for breakfast, since she'd drank a single drink the night before and knew that there was no chance that her growling stomach was actually the sign of a hangover. That plan was fantastic, until she opened the door to find Cynthia on the other side, looking shocked to see someone already awake.

"I, uh, was coming back to rejoin you all, sorry about last night," she said, sagging her shoulders as she tried her best to look a little ashamed of what she'd done. "I stopped by the room around midnight and no one was here, but when I went back down to the casino I couldn't find anyone, so I…kind of went with Inigo to the room he managed to get."

"It's fine, I really don't think you would've wanted to be in here with whatever the two of them ended up doing after I fell asleep," Nah replied, motioning behind her with her head, so that Cynthia could look for herself at the mess and chaos the room contained. "There was a bit of an incident last night, and I think they both coped with it by drinking far too much."

Cynthia's eyes narrowed as she thought about that, then she shrugged it off. "Okay, well, maybe it is for the best that things worked out the way they did. But ooh, an incident? Want to go down and get a coffee with me and tell me all about it?"

Nah hadn't expected to have company on her breakfast run, but she wasn't about to turn one of her friends down in the quest for a moment of solitude. "You know what? I think you'll get a laugh out of what happened, maybe even get a bit jealous that you weren't there to watch it all happen. So, it started while we were at the pool last night…"

A/N: there were two reasons I needed this epilogue before the proper epilogue, and I'm pleased with how it all turned out.