🏆 THE AMBY AWARDS 2023 TOP PICK - DIVERSE LIT 🏆
It's Rin and Hye-jin against the world. Or so it should have been.
Nagara Rin and Joon Hye-jin, college sweethearts and passionate gamers, have lived a fairytale marriage. Not even a decade after did...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I've never been in the auditorium, but from what I could gather from the buzz around me, it's a sight to see. The morning sun shone outside, encouraging the sleep heavy on my eyelids to show itself. After being roused from bed before sunrise, it's expected.
My closed fist shielded my oncoming yawn, glancing at my companions on our way to the meeting place. As the party who would be making the appeal, it's imperative we get there early. Nazran's hair was as rigidly tied as before, but he had exchanged his armor and shirt-and-trousers combo into a suit like Cavya and Ahrian. Our leader, himself, had already beat us inside the auditorium, no doubt starting to exchange pleasantries and being a graceful host for the meeting.
Valren stayed in his armor, glinting gold and complimenting his rich, golden scales. He had returned not a day too soon after the extraction mission, bearing news about the progress of the alliance with the Southern tribes.
I took up the rear of the original Dragnasand Knights, finding myself walking alongside Heather, who had cleaned up as well. Her jagged red hair was smoothed back from her forehead and she had stepped out of her armor and donned a long trench coat over her formal sleeveless shirt and tight-fitting trousers.
Revery and Trink were dressed to the nines, matching the occasion as well. Suddenly, deciding to show up in my usual clothes seemed like a bad idea. But what could I do? I didn't have any time to prepare for this conference. When I glanced at Hye-jin, I found her dressed like Revery, with the color scheme adjusted to purple. She liked that color, anyway.
I almost did a double take when my eyes landed on the hairpin stuck in the bun behind her head. It's...
"That's seriously what you're going to wear, when Cavya said to strictly dress formally?" Hye-jin frowned at me when she noticed me looking. "Seriously, you're pathetic."
Heather clicked her tongue as we turned a corner through Valren's discretion. "Not here, you two," she said, casting at the streams of people greeting us as we neared the auditorium.
Hye-jin flashed the dragonkin a flat look. "What? I'm not starting anything," she said, her tone rising into a defensive inflection. She stuck her lip out as she surveyed me but didn't say anything more.
Within seconds, we reached a corridor so wide it would have been its own lobby. More adventurers dressed in the fanciest clothes I've ever seen gathered and loitered around, either clumping in small cliques or hanging out on their own.
As I felt more eyes land on our newly-arrived group and picking me out of the haze of clothes as an irregular, I sidled next to Hye-jin and nudged her with an elbow. "Would you um..." I gestured to my outfit and then to her. "Help me with this?"
I expected Hye-jin to shake her head and laugh at me, but she jerked her chin in a vague direction. "Let's go," was all she said before she began stalking away, the heels of her ankle boots tapping against the wooden floor.
