Breaking Through

"Yeah, when those bandits ambushed the party in the woods I was pretty sure they were toast," Eric replied with a nod. "It caught me off guard when the thief was the one to rescue them! He almost seems to have some sort of sneak magic. Wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility."
 
"It is a clever way to shift your expectations," Daizi nodded, "Although I suppose stories love the idea of a benevolent thief. That's why Robin Hood is still so popular, right? Who doesn't love a sheep in wolf's clothing?"

Rose sat back in her seat, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. Her brows furrowed as she thought about the bandit attack, "You do have t'wonder though... the Duke specifically told them t'go through the forest, swore up and down it'd be the fastest, safest way t'go. The ranger tried t'say he knew the area, and that it was not as safe as the Duke said, and his opinion was shut down..." Daizi nodded in response, and mulled over what Rose had implied.

"It makes sense from a storytelling perspective, because obviously they couldn't have the characters choose the safe route and then simply pass through without any difficulty, but... it is strange."
 
"It does seem odd from the standpoint of the characters that the duke was so insistent that they take that particular route. I'm sure we will find out why as we continue to read," Kayla agreed, flipping through the pages of the book. "Something else I'm curious about is how the princess fits into the team. It seems like all the other members of the party have some sort of special skill that helps them further their journey. But short of being a decent cook and nagging the boys, she doesn't really seem to fit."

Damien tilted his head and stared at Kayla, nodding slowly. "You are right. I hadn't really thought about it, but she does seem to be the odd one out when it comes to skills and powers. I bet we just haven't found out what makes her special yet. Just watch, they'll be in a stressful situation and BAM, she'll bust out some awesome lightning magic or something and wreck the bad guys!"

"I bet you're right too, Damien. It wouldn't make sense from a storytelling point of view to include a useless character. I doubt it'll be anything flashy like lightning, but I'm sure there's something she adds that we just haven't noticed yet. Sometimes the most important members of a group are the ones who quietly keep things running, you know? Feeding the party and making sure they get along is much more important than it seems."
 
"I just hope they don't give her powers that are way overpowered, you know?" Rose said, "Anytime someone does that in a book, they take an ensemble cast and turn out one main character, and it always annoys me. Especially in this story, where no one has particularly grandiose powers. I mean, even the Mage, who is established to be extremely powerful, is labouring under that curse, so she can't use the full extent of her abilities at the moment, and the rest of the characters don't seem to be particularly extremely powerful. Inherently, I mean, obviously they're all very skilled, but so is the princess, so if when she does discover her abilities... it'll be disappointing if she ends up far more powerful than the other characters."

"The author seems to handle the balance of power with grace, so I'm not worried." Daizi replied, and leaned back with a sigh, "I'll tell you one thing about the princess, though: she's either my baby's most or least favourite character, anytime she shows up or is mentioned, my organs get trampled."

"Really?"

"Everytime," Daizi nodded, and was about to switch the topic, when the waitress came to take their drink orders. Daizi just asked for water, but Rose--somewhat sheepishly, because she wasn't sure if it was appropriate, considering the occasion--ordered a pint of ale. The energy of the restaurant was too powerful for her to resist.
 
"I'm going to have a bowl of stew and some seltzer," Eric told the waitress, a smile on his face. "Best stew in the village, hands down. Do you want some too, Kales?" He looked at Kayla who nodded, though she still seemed a little distracted by the discussion of the princess. She didn't really know why it bothered her so much; she simply hoped that as they continued to read she would feel better about it all. "Alright then. Two bowls of stew, a seltzer for me, and some lemonade for my sister."

Kayla nodded again, not realizing how thirsty she really was until Eric mentioned the lemonade. The waitress then looked to Damien, who attempted to covertly peek in his wallet. Eric caught the fall of his new friend's face and flashed him a smile. "Hey, why don't you get yourself something? You never eat with us at these things. My treat."

A look of surprise and appreciation spread across the student's face. "Thanks, man. I think I'll have some stew as well, and just water." Damien sat back in his chair and pushed the wallet deeper in his pocket. Being a student was hard; being a student with no support net was harder. Though part of him felt like he should be slightly embarrassed to let Eric pay, his grumbling stomach spoke louder.

When the waitress had left, Damien turned to Daizi. "That's cute about your little one. I didn't realize that babies reacted to stuff like that before they're even born!"
 
Rose also ordered the stew, because it was what inspired them all break from their usual coffeeshop routine, and visit the Irish restaurant again. Anyway, she was hoping it would taste like home, although she couldn't help shake her head when Eric called it the best stew in the village, because she knew in her soul it couldn't come close to the stew she had back home. Technically it wasn't part of the village, though, so she let it slide.

Daizi, meanwhile, had to have the waitress read the menu to her, because they didn't have an accessible option. She decided--because she felt like being a contrarian, it would seem--on having a reuben, and for once didn't ask for anything strange to go with it. It wasn't technically 'traditionally' Irish, but Rose wasn't the type to point it out. Half of the menu wasn't traditional, but that was true even of Irish restaurants in Ireland.

When the waitress was gone, Daizi turned to Damien and said, "Well, they don't react cognitively, obviously. I'm anthropomorphizing to say she has opinions, but she can hear fairly well, now, like the storm last week kept startling her, and of course she knows my voice, and she's begun to recognize my husband's, so I think she might hear the different tones in his voice when he reads the princess' lines... Or she might just be responding to my mood, which is also something she's known to do, I guess, she doesn't move if I'm crying but kicks like crazy when I'm laughing, but you know she's," Daizi cracked a smile and glanced away, somewhat embarrassed by how emphatic her maternal love was, especially considering how hard she tried to not get attached, due to her numerous losses, "she can sense all sorts of things, now, actually. She can taste what I eat, and sometimes it gives her hiccups, and just this week she opened her eyes for the first time, so now if you shine a flashlight over where she is, she'll wiggle away, and she's got fingerprints, and Dark says she was sucking her thumb at her last ultrasound, and the doctor says she smiles, but they can't show it on a 2d ultrasound."

Daizi shrugged, and rubbed her belly, but then froze, and all she could hear was shattering glass. Her skin felt damp, as though she was splashed, and then, at the tail end of it, she smelled blood. She sat there and stewed in it, until it faded enough for her to awkwardly stand up and say, "Hey, ah, Eric, Damien, the waitress seemed a bit... shakey. I'm going to stand a bit to the side... I think you both should, too, since you're at the end of the booth. Especially," she paused, and breathed to shake out the remaining fog in her head, "especially you, Damien. We can, ah, talk about w-work study, or something. My husband has connections." She couldn't see Damien check his wallet, but she knew he was a student, knew he didn't have parents, and could interpret enough from Eric's tone of voice to figure he wasn't especially well-off, and anyway she needed an excuse to get them away from the table, and it wasn't like she could say, "I saw the future, and the waitress is going to drop our drinks on your head, Damien, and the broken glass will cut you--I don't know how seriously--and the drinks will splash onto myself and Eric, and we may also be cut by the glass," because who would believe her? And it wasn't like she was lying, her husband was looking to get an assistant at the moment, and was doing so through the work-study program.
 
"Oh...okay?" Eric and Damien shot Daizi an odd look, but they shuffled away from the table and joined the mother-to-be. Kayla decided to take a moment to use the restroom since the path was no longer blocked by the boys, and she wandered off just about the time the waitress walked by. She carried a tray with half a dozen glasses on it, balanced precariously on one hand. She slipped past the boys and Daizi with a smile, turned to speak to the table next to them...and her foot found a puddle of spilled water.

One foot went one way, the other stayed put, and the tray flew into the wall right behind where Damien's head would have been. The glasses exploded into a shower of water and glass shards which littered the chairs, table, and floor. "Not again!" the waitress sighed, picking herself up from the floor and brushing the floor dirt from her backside. Another of the waitresses rushed over and helped her coworker to an empty booth.

"Are you alright, Aisla? That looked like a pretty nasty fall this time! Is your ankle okay? I know you were just telling me earlier it was just starting to feel better from last time!" The girl, seeming to suddenly remember that an occupied table had been affected, turned around and observed the mess. "Oh, dear. I am so sorry. Let me take you to a new table so we can get this one cleaned up. Are you all alright?"

Damien and Eric nodded, while Kayla stared in surprise from a few feet away. "Yeah, we're fine. Is she okay? That was a pretty gnarly fall." Aisla piped in that she was fine, and the second waitress peered around the pub for another empty table.
 
Rose, being the only one who was still sitting at the table, yelped in surprise when the tray came clattering down and all the glasses shattered. She wasn't hurt, she wasn't even wet, but she was certainly startled. Daizi, however, didn't react at all. The most she did was sigh. Similar events had happened frequently enough over the past week, that although they made her uncomfortable, it no longer shocked her when they came true.

"I'm alright," Rose said, slipping from the booth nimbly, doing her best to avoid the glass. She stepped over by Daizi and the boys, and said, amazed, "the three of you moved just in time, if you were still sitting there, Damien, you could have been seriously hurt! I'm glad you're all okay!" She spun around on her heels and looked around at the restaurant before hopping over to Kayla and repeating the same sentiment.

Daizi said nothing regarding the situation, and it wasn't until the second waitress said where they could sit that she spoke at all. Even then it was only to say, "Will you help me find where she said? Directions like, 'right there' aren't really helpful to me." She didn't know what the group would say, or if they even really realized she knew it would happen before it did, and she didn't know if she wanted them to acknowledge it or not. Frankly, all she wanted to do was either sit down... well, actually she wanted to use the bathroom and then sit down, but that was more because of the baby than it was because of the stress of once again catching a glimpse of events before they occurred.

"It's so lucky!" Rose was saying to Kayla, after stopping the check on the waitress personally, "can you believe it? I worked in an Inn for most of my life, so obviously I've seen waitresses--my sisters, mostly--take a tumble, but typically the patrons don't move in the nick of time!"
 
"Super crazy," Kayla replied with a giggle. Without knowing what Daizi was going through, it seemed like just an odd coincidence to her. "Glad I wasn't walking too much faster because I would have missed it! I do still need to use the restroom though, so I'll be back." She disappeared into the restroom as the others sat down at their new table.

Daizi seemed rather uncomfortable for some reason, and Eric looked at her quizzically. "Are you alright, Daizi? I hope the crash didn't startle you too badly. The last thing we need is for you to get startled into labor in the middle of the pub." He chuckled and pulled her new chair out for her, ensuring that there weren't any obstacles that she might trip over during her walking. "Pardon my pathetic attempt at humor."

"Which seat do you want, Rose?" Damien asked, glancing back repeatedly at the dark spot on the wall where the glass had shattered. The thought that his head could have been there gave him the shakes, and he did his best to ignore the nerves in his stomach. "I'll sit wherever is left." He pulled a bottle out of his pocket and opened it deftly, shaking out a pill and popping it in his mouth all in a matter of moments.
 
Eric's joke took Daizi by surprise, and it was enough to shake her out of it, "You sound like my sister," she laughed, "at least here we're with your's and not mine. Kayla's a 999 operator, she'll know what to do. Of course, I keep telling the parasite that I very much can wait to meet her. I will gladly wait another thirteen weeks until mid-November," she chuckled again, setting"Mo her purse down on one of the chairs, "anyway, the nursery isn't ready yet, my husband is still mood-boarding a theme."

"Mood boarding?" Rose asked, sitting down in the chair besides Daizi. As she did, she lightly touched Damien on the shoulder, making eye contact for just a moment. She had been watching him, because she spent much of her time at their meetings only watching everyone else, because she was a bit insecure, and didn't really know how to present herself in a way that she didn't feel embarrassed by. She had been watching him, and so she saw how disturbed he was by the knowledge he had narrowly escaped harm... Rose didn't want to call attention to it, or make a spectacle of someone else's emotions, but she couldn't just ignore it, and slipped a bit of human connection into an entirely separate conversation.

Daizi nodded, "We have this big corkboard set up in our sitting room at the moment. he takes it from the closet in his office anytime there's anything that needs planning. We want to throw a party, he makes a mood board to decide on the decorations, we want to redecorate a room, he makes a mood board, he spends all this time collecting images and colour swatches and fabric scraps, and he pins them to this board until he finds something he likes. When we got married he kept asking me what I thought about crimson instead of scarlet, scarlet instead of blood orange... now he keeps going on about 'should we do a blue-lilac or a soft lavender? Cornflower blue or bluebird blue, and I--" she shook her head, "I have been blind from birth, I don't know, I don't care, I just care about texture." She smirked and then dug around in her bag for her collapsible cane before heading to the bathroom herself.

"I wish I lived with someone," Rose sighed, "it's just me and my plants, I can't even own a pet because of the terms of my lease. Then again, I had a roommate when I first moved in, but my 'incessant' practicing made them leave, so now it's just me, fantastic oxygen, and two bedrooms." She couldn't deny how nice it was to have a seperate room just for her instruments, she had been considering putting out an ad for a roommate, just to make rent a bit cheaper. She could afford it fine, she wasn't technically struggling, but the decrease in bills would be nice. New music teachers didn't exactly bring home lots of money.
 
Damien jumped as Rose's hand brushed his shoulder, but he settled quickly as he reminded himself he was in the company of friends. He smiled and tucked his pack between his feet before looking around for their waitress. The experience had left him rather thirsty, and they didn't yet have any glasses of water at the table. Before he could flag anyone down, she reappeared with a new tray and carefully placed the drinks on the table. "So sorry about that, guys. Would you like an appetizer or dessert on the house to make up for it?"

"Oh, you don't have to do that," Eric replied with a chuckle. "It wasn't a big deal, really. We were all out of the way, and it was a total accident. Are you doing alright, by the way? You seemed to go down pretty hard." His eyebrows crinkled with concern and he reached out to get a drink, his hand happening to touch hers.

The waitress looked at him with her head tilted and stood a little straighter. "My back was a little sore, but all of the sudden I'm feeling quite well. The human body is amazing, isn't it?" She placed the last glass on the table and tucked her tray under her arm, turning with a smile. "If you change your mind on the offer, just let me know. The manager is the one who suggested it, so it's not a bother at all."

Kayla nodded and returned the waitress' smile. "We sure will. We'll have to see how we are feeling after we eat our dinner. If there's room, I certainly wouldn't say no to a nice slab of black forest cake."
 
"I wish my back recovered so quickly," Daizi griped, "but I suppose that's a privilege afforded to the young and not pregnant... and I will be taking you up on the free dessert offer."

Rose half laughed, and said, "I'm sure I will too, although I'll probably ask for it to-go. I'll eat it after work tomorrow." She figured she'd need it, because her music history students were going to take their first test, and, well, she knew at least half of them only took it as a 'blow-off' class, which meant she was going to return home with many failing, or at least close to failing, tests to grade. Rose liked her job well enough, it let her do music for a living, but she also wasn't particularly satisfied in it, and working with teenagers who treated her carefully planned class as a free-period was soul-sucking.

"I might take it home, too, share it with my husband," Daizi replied, and then remembered what she had mentioned to Damien earlier to get him away from the table, "Speaking of, he is genuinely looking for an assistant, so, Damien, Eric, if either of you are looking for a job and you're eligible for Work Study, you should apply. The way he described it, it's pretty simple secretarial work... obviously it isn't in either of your majors, but it never hurts to fill out your resume... I think my museum is also looking for paid interns, but it's in the city, and I don't know how convenient it would be to be a student and have an hour commute."
 
"I'm doing alright working at the local bakery," Eric replied with a smile. "Really early morning hours, but that leaves plenty of time for school. Thanks for the offer though!" He settled into his new chair and sipped his drink, watching the people all around then going about their lives. He tried to put the most recent experience with the waitress behind him, but he couldn't help glancing down at his hands and wondering if these miraculous healings were somehow his doing.

Damien, on the other hand, seemed intrigued. "Mindless work is my specialty," he chuckled. "I'll have to go speak with my counselor and see if I qualify. It would be nice to have a little more cash."
 
"I should warn you, he is very exacting. If you write the date month-date-year and not day-month-year, he'll make you redo it, and he takes tardiness extremely seriously," Daizi paused, realizing she might be scarring Damien off, and explained that her husband had OCPD, "he's been in treatment for almost a decade, so it isn't really that severe anymore. It's managed, but he still has his peculiarities. His edges. He isn't really that bad, he's so much better than he was when we were young, but we have two very different personalities, and I don't want you to think, having met me, that he operates in the same way." She stammered through her sentences, because she was trying to both defend her husband--even though there was no need to--and also trying to help Damien, without misleading him.

Rose, meanwhile, was more focused on Eric, "It's cool you work in a bakery... do you do the actual baking, or just work the counter? I used t'... when I first came here, when I was still in Uni, my girlfriend and I... well, girlfriend at the time, we wanted t'open a bookstore-cafe... She would bake everything, and I'd play live music, and... well, that was the dream, then," she sighed, and gazed around the room. When she focused her attention back on him, she noticed how he was looking at his hands, "Are you alright, Eric? You keep looking down at your hands, like you expect them t'suddenly be different."
 
"Nah, I'm alright," Eric replied, tucking his hands away. "And I work in the back, making sure the bread proofs and bakes properly. It's pretty great being surrounded by fresh bread all the time." He gave Rose a smile and picked up the book to flip through the pages. "You know, I'm starting to get suspicious about the guy who sent them into the woods. I know he's supposed to be like... The leader of the good guys, but I don't like him."

In his discussion with Daizi, Damien chuckled. "He can't be any worse than some of the foster dads I've dealt with. And I'd be paid to handle it rather than people telling me I'm just lucky I'm not on the streets, so it'd be fine."
 
"That's what I was saying about him!" Rose chirped, popping up in her seat a little, so that she was sitting on her knees on the chair, "I thought it was suspicious as all get out that he sent them through the woods, claiming that, 'Yes it's slower, but it's safer,' and what happens? They immediately get ambushed! And are we supposed to just take it as coincidence that he gave the mage a vision that made her powers stronger at that had the 'unexpected consequence' of her being able to perceive her own future while she wore it? Meaning she couldn't tell they were about to be ambushed!" She pushed her hair from her face, as the waitress brought their drinks and meals--successfully, this time. She chuckled under her breath at her passionate outburst, but stood by it, "He's going to be like Saruman, I bet. Watch." She smiled at Eric, absolutely thrilled someone agreed with her position.

Daizi shrugged her shoulders, and with a sigh said, "It's distressing to see how they allow to become foster parents... and who they deem unsuitable, but don't even get me started on social services. I have had so many interviews and evaluations to be deemed 'unsuitable,' I'm not supposed to be able to have children biologically, right now I'm running on various operations and treatments and luck, and still, even still, social services is worming their way in, wanting to see if I'm 'competent.' They don't ask my husband any questions, like they did when we were trying to adopt, he isn't being evaluated anymore--it seems he is of solid enough stock to care for a biological child, they were only concerned when he wanted to adopt, but me, god forbid... And then you look at the people they let have children, the people they let foster, and they treat them like a paycheck!" She grumbled, "Of course, I don't need to tell you, you know, obviously, you've lived it, you've survived it, but we tried to adopt, or foster, and we get told, 'oh, you're blind,' 'your husband deserted from the army,' 'you both work,' 'you both have mental illness, no we don't care you're both in treatment, which you sought out of your own volition, you aren't approved." She huffed and took a sip of her water, and mumbled under her breath.
 
Damien growled and nodded. "I think half of them just completely lied to even get past the examination. I remember one house where the husband was a raging alcoholic. Whenever the social services worker was scheduled to visit, the wife would make me spend the entire day getting rid of or hiding every piece of evidence of alcohol in the house. Once I missed a beer can barely sticking out from behind the couch, and that jerk beat my back black and blue as soon as the worker was gone. She didn't even see it... Thankfully they got tired of me pretty quickly and gave me back after about a month."

He ran his fingers through his dark hair, blushing a little at his forthcomingness. "I'm sorry you've struggled in that way...I know I hardly know you, but I know you're a far cry better than some of the monsters they hand these kids over to."

Kayla did her best not to eavesdrop on Damien and Daizi's conversation... Mostly because it made her sick to her stomach. She instead turned to face her brother and Rose. "I guess you two make a good point. I hadn't really considered the evidence that way. But I'm still not convinced."
 
Daizi nodded, "My husband's biological parents were like that... they didn't have substance abuse problems, he said, but... some people marry, who shouldn't, and they feel trapped, and then they have a kid on accident and feel even more trapped, and they both blamed him, and each other. My father is just rich and distant, and it still wasn't a healthy relationship for a long time, it still probably isn't, but he just pushed me off onto my governess... but I'm never not thankful he was only distant and cold towards me, and not abusive like his parents were," she sighed, and then smiled towards Damien, "we'll be better than they were, though," she finally turned towards the book based conversation, "If he is the villain, then I don't know what they're supposed to do with the artifact they brought for him. There's the person he said they're protecting it from, but we haven't even met them yet, so for all we know they're both evil, and the protagonists are choosing the lesser. This Duke is suspicious, and I doubted him from the moment he was introduced," she turned to Damien and said, "Daddy issues," with a playful smirk before turning back, "but if the unknown is worse, it'd be foolish to jump to any conclusions before we have all the facts."

"But if they keep listening t'him and not investigating for themselves," Rose argued, "they'll never know about the other person. At least, they'll never learn anything beyond what the Duke tells them, and if he can't be trusted, they know nothing. God, I'd love t'just get inside the book myself and figure it out for myself!" She took a sip of her drink and then sat back down in a more appropriate way, "Normally I'm so patient, but when it comes t'books it's so hard t'pace myself. It's even worse when we're in a group like this, because my thoughts aren't just inside my head."
 
Back
Top