Beautiful artwork made by Randompeephere<3
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Naomi and Nisha drop into their seats in the lively tavern, having chosen to sit more so separated from the commotion in a table for two on the second floor, which is more relaxed than the first with a wooden balcony overlooking the party with tables set along the rail.
The tavern is larger than the others Naomi had been to, laid out with two floors. The main floor is where the commotion takes place, with merry people dancing and drinking, laughing, and having a good time. Save for the occasional fistfight.
Nisha lifts her flagon of rum to her lips and takes a swig before setting it down on the table in front of her as Naomi takes a big bite of her apple pie she bought from the cook. The tavern is much warmer than outside, so Naomi takes off her hide coat and drapes it over the back of her chair, leaning forward with her elbows on the table.
Nisha sits with one leg propped up on her chair and the other below the table. She sighs as she takes another drink, then eyes Naomi now that she can see parts of her skin along her neck and arms. She sees the pink gashes that run along her collarbone and shoulder, as well as her bicep.
"What the hell happened? You look like you lost a sword fight with a grizzly," the Tus'Felnis raises a brow.
She knows it was simply a metaphor, but at this point, she wouldn't be surprised if a bear charged at her wielding a broadsword.
Naomi glances down at the healing scars and chuckles awkwardly. "Yeah... something like that," she sighs. "I was attacked by a werewolf in Balmoral."
"What? What were you doing around werewolves?"
Naomi shrugs and takes another bite of pie. "We needed to get a werewolf pelt to trade for the Schism Fragment. And I may have unintentionally ended up as the bait. But hey, at least it worked," she says and looks down at the lower half of the tavern, seeing the patrons break out into another merry dance with the upbeat music the bard is playing.
Nisha chuckles absently and leans back, wrapping her nimble fingers around the handle of her flagon. "Damn lucky you got out alive. How'd you survive that? Not many people are known to walk away from a werewolf attack." Her ears twitch curiously.
Naomi looks down and scratches the back of her neck, fiddling with her fork and poking at her meal, watching the red filling spill out and drip to the bottom of the dish.
"Lavern saved me," she says and looks at her again.
The Tus'Felnis lifts her mug and takes another drink. She sets it back down and wipes her arm across her lips, chuckling and squinting her eyes at the other girl.
"Really? Of all people, the last one I expected to care about someone else was the Cle, but I guess I'm not one to judge someone based on their walk of life so long as their intentions aren't malicious. Do you know why he did it though?" she asks.
Naomi huffs and rolls her eyes. "Probably because he hasn't stopped hitting on me since we left Ecrin," she grumbles. Nisha laughs.
"Oh man, that's great. I mean... he seems like an okay guy, I think? If he saved you then he's all right in my book. What about you? Are those feelings mutual?" She makes sly eyes at her.
Now it's Naomi's turn to laugh. "Nope. Not gonna happen. He's not my type."
"Is that so? Got high standards, do ya?"
Naomi shakes her head. "Not really. Well, I don't think so anyway. Back in Eutria, the only romantic feelings I ever had were strictly for fictional characters. As for real people, I never thought about it much before coming here," she says and takes a bite of pie, using her thumb to wipe off a bit of filling that got on the corner of her mouth.
Nisha leans closer and examines her face through narrowed eyes with a small grin. "So... you've been thinking about it since coming to Aramora, huh?" She chuckles. "Thinking about giving Lavern a chance?"
Naomi's cheeks turn a soft shade of pink and she looks down. "No... not him." She takes a nervous bite of pie. Nisha leans back and tilts her head to the side.
"Really? Then who?" she asks.
Naomi clears her throat and takes another bite. She sets her fork down and chuckles nervously. "Why are we talking about this?! Shouldn't we be discussing, like, I don't know, magic awesome quest stuff or something!" she coughs and continues with her nervous eating.
Nisha laughs. "Fine fine... I'll let you off the hook for now. You're no fun..." she pouts playfully. Naomi rolls her eyes and shakes her head. She watches as Nisha takes another drink.
As she brings the flagon back down, she notices the shadows of the room barely conceal a black and purple bruise on her shoulder.
"Woah, Nisha. What happened? That bruise looks bad," Naomi questions and leans closer to look at it.
Nisha's ears perk up and she sets the flagon down. She examines Naomi's face and follows her gaze to her exposed shoulder, seeing the bruise she's talking about. Her demeanor suddenly shifts and she lets out a small gasp before grabbing her scarf and pulling it over the dark spot.
"It's nothing... Just a... Drawback of getting into bar fights, ya know." She clears her throat and chuckles. Naomi looks unconvinced, but Nisha speaks again before she gets the chance to question her further. "So, why don't you tell me what took you guys so long to get here? Balmoral is about no more than a week's walk from here. What happened?" she asks.
Naomi relaxes a bit and sighs, accepting the fact that Nisha isn't going to talk about whatever it is, but it's clearly not from a bar fight. As if anyone could even land a hit on her. She looks down at the other half of the tavern again as the bard starts playing a more mellow song and the rowdy patrons take their seats to enjoy their drinks and meals.
"A few days after leaving Balmoral, we were attacked along the road," she starts.
"Attacked? By who?" Nisha tilts her head.
Naomi lightly rubs at her shoulder where she had been hit with the dart when they were attacked. "Some spies from Narvadin. They kidnapped Malachi and me and interrogated us for the fragment," she explains.
Nisha provides no response so Naomi looks at her again to see that she has her flagon to her lips, guzzling down the rum. She slams the flagon back down and coughs, drumming her fist against her chest to help clear her throat. Her eyes are going a bit lazy and half-lidded and her cheeks are tinted red.
"...Narvadin spies? They didn't... hurt you, did they?" The Tus'Felnis looks down and bites her lip. Naomi shrugs.
"A little. But nothing too bad. For me at least. Malachi got the short end of the stick. Which was partially my fault." She takes a bite and eyes Nisha quizzically as she drinks more from her flagon in a long draught.
"Nisha?" Naomi says curiously.
Nisha lowers the flagon and hiccups, placing her hand against her chest and taking a breath.
"...Y," she hiccups again, "...yes...?"
Naomi tilts her head sideways and looks her over. "Are you... feeling alright?" she asks.
Nisha waves her off and laughs. "Me? Pfft! I'm fi—" she hiccups, "—ine! I'm fine!" She breaks into a small fit of laughter again. The Tus'Felnis looks down at the first floor. As she watches the people dancing and drinking and the bard playing his song, a wave of some indescribable emotion flashes across her eyes as she stares at the bard. She seems almost pulled into a trance.
Naomi tries to see what she's looking at but nothing's there that seems out of the ordinary. She reaches across the table and rests her hand on Nisha's arm. "What is it?" she asks. Nisha looks at her again and huffs, pulling her arm back.
"'What is it'?" she slurs.
"Aramora was supposed to be safe! But it's not! Narvadin can't be evaded!" she shouts and stares angrily yet pleadingly into Naomi's eyes. Her voice suddenly changes to carry the accent that Tus'Felnis normally have.
"Nisha... what are you—"
"They'll take everything and leave us with nothing!"
She pushes her chair back as she shoots out of her seat, whipping around and digging her claws into the wooden rail overlooking the first floor. Her ears are folded flat against her head and her tail swishes anxiously. "Nowhere is safe! Aramora is going to be destroyed and then Narvadin wins! Varagores wins! Everyone wins but us! Why?!" She lowers her head and grits her teeth, closing her eyes as they begin to tear up.
Naomi slowly stands up and stands behind her. "...Why what? What's wrong?" she asks softly.
Nisha sniffles and shrinks in on herself. She blinks her eyes open and stares distantly at the patrons who carelessly dance and have fun with each other through blurred eyes.
"Why can't Nisha just be free...?" She closes her eyes and lowers her head again.
"What are you talking about? You are free. What happened to 'live today as if you'll die tomorrow'?"
Naomi places her hand gently on her shoulder, minding the bruise, and feels the Tus'Felnis slightly relax for a second. Her body trembles. Her brief relaxation dissolves and she steps away from the rail, backing away from Naomi and hissing. "It's different when you know that you will die. Whether it is here or in Narvadin doesn't matter..." She slightly stumbles and Naomi catches her before she can go down.
She sighs and helps get her seated back in her chair. "Wait here... I'll get us a room so you can rest. You've had a bit too much to drink."
She was expecting some form of protest, but Nisha just meekly nods and sinks into the chair, lowering her head on the table and staring off at the wall. Naomi watches her with concern before taking a deep breath and heading downstairs to talk to the innkeep about getting a room for the night with the numis she has.
Naomi opens the door to the room with Nisha leaning against her with her arm draped across her shoulders. She softly shuts the door with her foot and leads Nisha over to the queen-sized bed with soft green blankets and fluffy white pillows.
She helps lower her into bed and Nisha lays back, covering her forehead with her hands and grimacing. Naomi stares at her and sighs. "You should get some rest... you're not yourself right now," she says tenderly. Nisha gives a feeble nod and peers up at her through squinted eyes.
"Why are you helping me?" she asks quietly.
Naomi grabs her hand and cups her cheek with a smile. "Because I care about you, Nisha. You're my friend." She rubs her thumb over Nisha's cheek to wipe away a small tear before she removes her hands from her and walks over to the lanterns that illuminate the room.
She blows them out and pulls the wooden shutters of the opaque windows shut to leave the room dark. She walks over to the bed and crawls in beside Nisha, pulling the blankets up over them both.
Nisha shifts to face her and smiles wistfully. "...Thank you."
Naomi had woken up a few hours before Nisha, so she took the time to grab breakfast from the bar downstairs and bring it back up to the room to wait for Nisha to wake up. She sets a glass of water on the end table beside the bed on Nisha's side because she's pretty damn sure she's going to wake up with a hangover.
Strangely enough, helping Nisha like this is kind of bittersweet. In a way, it reminds her of how she used to help her mom come down from hangovers. She never liked doing it because she hated seeing her mother that way, but now that she's gone she weirdly misses those times she would prepare glasses of water, ice packs, and buckets at her mom's bedside. These things may have helped the hangover, but they didn't actually help her. Hopefully, she won't make that same mistake with Nisha.
But her mother had very obvious reasons for her drinking and throwing her life away. Nisha on the other hand? She was the last person Naomi expected to have a drunken outburst like she did last night. She has always seemed to be in more control and never lets anything get into her head, but at that moment something made it all spill out.
Well, maybe not all of it. There seemed to be far more going on beneath the surface that she can't see.
Not yet anyway.
Nisha groans as she begins to stir, but she keeps her eyes closed and pulls the covers up over her head. Naomi stands at her side as she waits for her to resurface and face the world.
She briefly considers blowing off any plans for the day by crawling back in bed and hiding under the covers as if it's the first day of school after spring break and she refuses to accept that she has to become one with the living, but her curiosity as to what set off Nisha last night overpowers her imminent laziness.
She sits at the foot of the bed with her hands crossed in her lap, twiddling her thumbs awkwardly as she waits. Nisha doesn't show any signs of emerging so Naomi lightly tugs on the blankets to pull them just below the Tus'Felnis's eyes so the dimmed light from the window can shine on her closed eyelids.
Nisha grumbles and blinks her eyes open, squinting against the light and dizziness of her movements. Her eyes scan over the room until they land on the foot of the bed where Naomi sits with a curious smile gleamed back at her.
"...Naomi?" Nisha says groggily.
"Morning, Nisha. Feel any better?"
"Better? What..." She pinches the bridge of her nose and winces. "...Oh yeah... hangover."
Naomi nods towards the end table at her side. "I got you some water. It's still cold so it should help you—" She stops as Nisha takes the glass of water and splashes some over her face.
The Tus'Felnis coughs and sets the glass back down to wipe at her eyes and sit up straight. She takes a deep breath and shakes her head firmly, shaking away the last of her fatigue. It didn't do much to get rid of her headache, but it got her awake at least.
Naomi shrugs. "That works too, I guess." She chuckles.
Nisha sighs and brushes her fingers through her hair, pulling it out of its braid to spill messily over her shoulders in hazel waves with droplets of water still clinging to a few strands around her face, cat ears, and eyelashes, dripping each time she blinks or twitches her ears.
Admittedly, the sight makes Naomi's heart flutter.
"Did... anything happen last night? It's all a blur..." Nisha's ears flick forward to show she's listening even as she keeps her head angled down and firmly rubs her temples in circles.
"Nothing too bad. You got wasted and started yelling a lot so I got a room so you could rest," Naomi explains. Nisha slowly nods and looks up at her with a half-focused stare. Her attention is clearly divided between recalling last night and the headache beating against her skull.
"...What did I say?" she asks.
"Some stuff about Aramora and Narvadin. You also started talking like a Tus'Felnis again." Naomi watches her lower her head back down.
This is vastly different behavior from the last time they saw each other, back in Ecrin. She doesn't seem to carry the same ideals as she used to, which is strange considering how set in her ways she seemed. She used to carry herself as though the world could throw its worst at her and she would come out on top with a smirk and a good laugh, having braved what most would cower from. She would never hesitate to stare her fears in the eye and overcome them.
So why is she sitting here with her head down in shame?
"Nisha... is everything okay?" she asks in a soft voice.
Nisha sighs and weakly nods, lowering her hands from her head. "I'm fine... I've just been kinda... stressed lately, I guess." She looks up at her with more focus. "Sorry about all that... I don't know what came over me. It won't happen again, I promise."
"It's okay. You don't need to apologize. I'd just like to know what's going on that caused that. It was very unlike you," Naomi says.
Nisha reclaims the glass of water and Naomi fears for a moment that she's going to splash herself again, but she simply takes a slow drink before setting it back on the end table with a refreshed sigh. She keeps her hand on the glass and her eyes stare at the small ripples on the surface of the water, swaying back and forth until it eventually settles and sits flat. She seems almost entranced by it, captivated by the easing ebb and flow.
"It's just been a mess out here, that's all... With the political bullshit going on in Arkala, all this stuff about the man we're looking for, and now knowing that Narvadin spies are crawling around Aramora. I guess it was getting to me more than I thought." She takes a deep breath and returns her hand to her side as she meets Naomi's patient gaze once more.
"But at least I got it out of me, so hopefully I can go out there with a clear head now," she says.
Naomi examines her face. Even with the sleep she got last night, she still has subtle bags under her eyes. Her shoulders droop and her breathing is weighted. Whatever's going on, it seems that it wasn't just a sudden thing on account of the rum. Something's been weighing on her for a while now.
But Naomi knows better than anyone that when a teenager is in a potentially bad mood and clearly shows no signs of wanting to talk about what's on her mind, the last thing you want to push for her to do is spill her heart out.
Sometimes in a storm, it's better to just let the water settle on its own before trying to navigate the sea.
Naomi nods and shifts to face Nisha a bit better with her leg tucked beneath her. She smiles her understanding. "I'm sure you can. And just know that if you ever feel the need to get anything else out, I'm here. You can always talk to me, Nisha."
The Tus'Felnis' ears slightly lower bashfully and she shows her a small smile in return. "Thank you. You're... a good friend, Naomi," she says sweetly.
Naomi bites her lip and looks down. The softness in Nisha's voice makes her feel warmer and her heart beat a little faster. She can't be the only one who's feeling this, right? She supposes there's only one way to find out. Well, there are many ways, but most of them would involve indirect stalking from a wingman who would probably be Kitty, but Kitty isn't here. So here goes nothing.
"Just... friends?"
Nisha's ears instantly perk up and she sits up stiffly with her eyes fully awake. She doesn't seem terribly shocked by the meaning behind the words, more so the fact that Naomi actually said them.
Naomi sits and waits anxiously in silence, watching the conflicted emotions play across Nisha's face all in one moment. When she speaks, it almost feels as if the answer was prepared in advance. Maybe it was, but she doesn't know if that's a good or a bad sign.
Nisha looks away. "Naomi... I..." she sighs, "I know what you're getting at... and I'm flattered, but... I'm afraid I have to decline."
It was a bad sign. Now Naomi sees why she never bothered to have an interest in relationships before coming to Aramora. It's because it sucks when it turns out that you were the only one to feel that way.
Maybe after this, she should go apologize to Lavern.
Nah.
Naomi looks down. "I take it you're taken already? That guy from yesterday?" she asks awkwardly.
"You mean..." Nisha looks at her again and swiftly shakes her head. "Ceraan? No! Not in a million years!" she scoffs and crosses her arms, looking like the very thought of it makes her sicker than her hangover does. Naomi supposes that's some form of relief as that guy seemed like a complete asshole. But now she's just left with more questions forming in her head on why Nisha isn't interested.
"So then... is it because I'm a girl?" she asks.
Nisha chuckles quietly and shakes her head. "Trust me, that is far from the reason." She takes a deep breath and shifts to sit with her legs dangling off the edge of the bed beside Naomi. She nods to herself a few times as she works out the best way to explain in her head before speaking it aloud.
"I like you, Naomi. A lot. But... there are some things about me that you don't know that would make a relationship nearly impossible. It just wouldn't work out, believe me. It's better to just move on and find someone else who would be better for you," she says, trying to sound as sure as she hopes she does.
"But no one interests me as much as you," Naomi says. She hates how desperate she sounds.
"You barely know me..." Nisha looks down. "I'm glad we've become such good friends in the short time we've known each other. We've got a good thing going here; let's not try and make it into anything more than what it needs to be, okay?" Her voice sounds both hopeful and sad, but admirably also confident in what she's saying.
Naomi nods and looks down again. "Okay..."
"Hey, come on... don't let this ruin what we already have. I'd hate this to fuck up our friendship, especially now that I'm gonna be sticking with you guys for a while now." Nisha rests her hand on Naomi's shoulder and shows her hopeful smile.
Naomi lifts her head and looks at her curiously. "You... are?"
Nisha nods. "Yep. I sent word to Athemar that I keep hitting dead-ends in my search for the man, so he told me that I can either keep up the wild goose chase or help you guys find the fragments. And, well, my choice is clear. I'll be joining your little 'adventure squad', at least until I'm directed otherwise," she explains and her smile grows.
Naomi smiles as well. She's still a little hurt from Nisha turning her down, however, the fact that she'll be coming with them makes up for it. That just means she'll have plenty more opportunities to find out exactly what things are keeping her from returning her feelings. If she's learned anything from Kitty, it's that persistence is key in situations like this. The fact that she's only ever gotten a single restraining order must mean that it works for the most part.
Since when does she take Kitty's advice?
"Speaking of the 'adventure squad'... we should probably go find them since I may have kinda ditched them last night to find you." Naomi laughs nervously. Nisha laughs as well and stands up, steadying herself with her arms at her sides as the sudden movement makes her head slightly spin.
Naomi stands up after her. They grab their things and walk over to the door. Naomi grabs the knob, but pauses before opening it as Nisha's hand finds itself back on her shoulder.
The Tus'Felnis smiles at her kindly.
"Are we good?" she asks.
Naomi smiles back and nods. "Yeah. We're good."