Thursday, January 4

Monika

Life in Ethan's apartment was starting to settle into a familiar routine. About seven thirty or so, he and I would both crawl out of bed. He'd hit the shower while I would plod out to the kitchen and get myself some coffee and do breakfast, and I'd make him lunch to bring in with him beforehand too. "It saves money!" I'd tell him whenever he objected to me going to the effort.

I definitely understood what his deal was. Ethan was really concerned about me being my own person and living for myself. He was a bit – quite a bit, really – of a feminist, so his outlook was that he didn't want me to just be some live-in servant or something. I was an independent woman, dammit, and he would not see me lose myself in him, or something like that. The idea of me wasting away as a homemaker irked him a bit. It was really warmhearted of him, and I loved him for it, but I always reassured him that yes, this is what I really wanted. Not that I'd object to getting a job, once we got our official business sorted out – and honestly, I did want to, out of guilt for leeching off of him the way I felt like I did – but for now, I truly was happy with what I was doing.

This is not to say that I could see myself being cooped up in the apartment all the time. Jack seemed like the type that wouldn't ever leave if he didn't have to, but that just wasn't my thing. I craved a little more human interaction and life experience than that. Unfortunately, it really seemed like that just wasn't in the cards for me right then. As far as the government was concerned, I just didn't exist, which meant that I couldn't learn to drive or anything like that, I couldn't ever finish my education, and heaven help me if I had a run in with the law. Which, I figured, was likely, because I sure didn't know much about where I was.

That's why I was spending all my free time on Wikipedia lately. Learning the basics about my new home was my biggest priority. (With the possible exception of Ethan, of course!)

Honestly, I was starting to get pretty upset at the whole situation I found myself in. I practically only had the knowledge I needed to function as a character and come off as a believable person. For a person supposedly about to graduate school, I knew very, very little. Oh, sure, I knew a lot about literature and poetry, and a few little tidbits here and there, but everything else was some undefined, useless mist at the back of my mind. You know how I'd been learning D&D? And you know how when you create a character, their backstory is kind of just a few vague points that you base them off of, maybe with a few sections fleshed out, and everything else is just improvised on the go? I was like that in the game, and here in the real world, but without that authority that could come up with things as they became important. So now my memories and knowledge were just a few anchoring islands of well-defined know-how, and everything else was… formless, generalities, just barely there. That, in addition to what little bits Jack had told me through the text box while I was still in the game – so far as real-world knowledge, mostly little bits about politics and his job, since he'd taken to venting his frustrations to me. All told, enough to be a functional person, if only just.

I pretty much needed a full education from scratch. Jack was giving me a hand as much as he could, and it really was helping, especially with more advanced math. Even though we tended to, ah, distract each other a lot.

Not that I was complaining. He's pretty cute. Ahahaha…~

Anyway, so this morning, I was spending my time reading up on history, and listening through Hamilton while I was at it. It just felt thematic. There was a lot to learn about the past of this country, despite how short its history was compared to the rest of the world. I had a passing thought – a place this varied and storied had to have a great body of writing to take in! My inner – well, okay, outer too – lit nerd took over. The only author or poet whose work I actually knew from reading it was Shel Silverstein, but… that could change. I started looking through the articles on Wiki, writing down names that came up a lot. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Maya Angelou, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, John Steinbeck, Walt Whitman… oh yeah, this was going to be so fun!

Yep. I'm a lit nerd alright.

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I never actually got the time to read any of it that Thursday, though.

For my theme song / My leather black jeans on…

Because right about then my phone went off, much to my surprise. I'd had a stern talk with Jack about not hitting me up while he was working. Don't get me wrong, I loved him and I missed him when he wasn't home, but I was adamant about him putting himself and his career first. So I'd made it crystal clear that he was only allowed to text or call me during his lunch break or if there was an emergency – and it was only about ten thirty or so. And then I remembered that wasn't the song I'd assigned to messages from him anyway.

Things made a bit more sense when I actually got to the phone and saw it wasn't my boy calling me. Actually, it was Lia. I hadn't even known she was in my phone, or had my number. Ethan's doing, no doubt. Ah well. I stifled a little bit of anxiety – a part of me noted it was getting better as time went on, so that was a good sign that I was getting back to my old self at least – and picked up.

"Heyyyyyyyy, dude!" an impossibly cheery voice came over the line.

"Oh, hello, Lia. I, ah, wasn't expecting to hear from you."

"Yeah, well, I heard you were just sitting at home on your ass doing nothing all the time, so I made Ethan give me your number! So, Monika, what's happening, dude?"

"Ah, I'm just sitting at home doing some reading…"

"Cool, cool. I've got the day off today and I'm bored as hell, so I had an idea… you feel like getting out of the apartment a little bit today?"

"Ahhh…" I let out a nervous chuckle. "Sure? What did you have in mind?"

"Nothing crazy, I was just gonna go out to lunch and I thought, 'you know, I should hang out with Monika, she's fucking cool!' So I figured we could go get some food in maybe like… 45 minutes or so and then if you want you can chill at our place for the day. We could work on your character for the game on Saturday, maybe!" Lia was audibly bouncing through the roof at the idea.

"…Did Ethan put you up to this?" I asked suspiciously.

"What? No, of course not!" she laughed. "I just wanted to hang out with you a bit, dude!"

"Ahahaha, okay. Sure. We'll do it. Let me go get ready, just come knock on the door and I'll come out."

"Alright, Monika, see ya in a bit!" Lia disconnected.

Hmm. Okay. Guess I'm going out today. I got to figuring out the day's look. The weather actually warmed to what the news said was an unseasonably comfortable 56 degrees (I had to mentally force myself to use Fahrenheit, not Celsius). I was a little disturbed about that, considering it'd been twenty degrees outside not two days ago, but that's climate change for you. On the bright side, that was leggings weather. So, after fixing up my hair, an annoyingly lengthy process given that it was long enough to sit on, I settled for a frilly white knee-length dress and black leggings, added a black/white/blue tartan scarf, threw that gorgeous new coat – the faded blue one – over the ensemble, and completed the look with my trademark white ribbon. A judicious application of makeup later, and I was ready. I looked damn cute, if I do say so myself.

Actually...

I pulled out my phone, took a quick self-shot, and sent it to Ethan along with a message letting him know I'd be out for the day and where I was. Figured he'd like that. When lunch rolled around, knowing him, I fully expected to get a full page of heart eyes emojis back. That's just the way he was. Sometimes it felt like the boy worshiped the ground I walked on, which, ah, wasn't a bad feeling at all, even if I felt like I didn't deserve it a lot of the time.

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I had about ten minutes to go before Lia was due to get here. This was not a good thing for me. That meant ten minutes where I could go over everything that might possibly go wrong. Let it slip that I'm from a game? Say something I didn't know was offensive? Attract the attention of a police officer or the landlord? I know it sounds ridiculous in hindsight, but I was afraid. I was somewhere that I didn't have a right to be and I was going out without Erhan to make sure I didn't mess up. I trusted Lia, of course, but…

A knock on the door. Waiting in the hall was a fairly short girl with dirty blonde hair, wrapped up in a red and white varsity jacket draped over a very thick and warm-looking sweater ("Fuck the cold, I grew up in South Carolina before we moved here," she told me once), bouncing with energy.

"…Whoa, I'm still not over how pretty you are," Lia said, voice somewhere between bouncing joy and a little bit of good-natured jealousy, before completely ignoring any concept of personal space and wrapping me up in a rib-crushing hug. "It's good to see you again!"

I was very uncomfortably reminded of Sayori by her sheer happy energy, and by the realization I had just then that she was about the same height and build too. I'd been too into the game the past weekend to notice it, but it was pretty unpleasant now that it was all hitting me in the face.

That said, I was still very happy to see Lia anyway, so I pushed it down. "It's good to see you too, Lia." I paused as I disengaged for the sake of my ribcage. "So where did you want to go?"

"Wellllll, how do you feel about Italian? I was thinking about Olive Garden. Ethan told me you were a vegetarian, and they have really good salad that you can get as much as you want of it…"

I had precisely zero what Italian food was like, other than the fettucine Ethan'd made for me the other day, but I was definitely down. And she knew I ate veggie and tried to think of a good place to take me for it? God, everyone's being so nice to me. What did I do to deserve this? No, I don't deserve this…

I snapped out of it, motioned for her to lead the way, and tried to think of something to talk about. The most natural place to start, I figured as we got into her car, would be her school. She looked pretty proud of it, judging by the letterman jacket, which had quite a few patches proudly displayed on it. I saw one I actually knew a little bit about….

"Marching band, huh?"

"Yeah, I was a band geek! I played alto sax. Tenor too, but I'm better on alto. Tough shit, don't let anybody tell you it's not a sport. Sweating my ass off marching around in circles for hours in those stuffy uniforms carrying an instrument… I mean, sure, it's not like I was one of those poor idiots carrying the big drums or sousaphones or something, the alto's only like five pounds or so, but still, shit's heavy when you're carrying it for hours! Anyway, it was fun, I'm proud of it, I made lots of good friends, but Jesus Christ it's hard work. Ugh. Don't even get me started about band camp…." She shuddered involuntarily.

"Goodness, Lia, it sounds like it. I'm glad my instrument lets me sit down!"

Lia perked up at that in her seat. "You play too? Really? What do you play?"

"Ah, I'm not very good at it or anything, but I play the piano.…" I said, feeling myself blushing a little.

"Bullshit!" she shot back, emoting with her hands and making me very nervous considering she was driving on roads that were still slick from the melting snow. "I bet you're great at it! I'd love to hear it! Hey, I've got sax, you've got keys, Ethan's got guitar, Tsuki used to play drums… find a bass and we could make a band out of this!"

"Oh gosh no! I couldn't!"

"…Maybe not any time soon, but I bet we could. Come on, have a little faith! Nothing's stopping us from trying, right? Ethan could get us a room to practice in at the community center…."

I just shook my head as she went on. No one person should be allowed to be this energetic. Again I was unwillingly reminded of Sayori, and again I pushed it down. Depressing as that was, it was also a little bit comforting to run into someone familiar. My feelings were in a weird place, okay?

##################################################################

We kept up the banter for a few minutes before pulling into the restaurant. Olive Garden was a little more upscale than the IHOP had been, although it was pretty obviously still a chain. As promised, they had unlimited salad, which I unceremoniously jumped on. Lia wasn't lying. Granted I didn't have that much to compare it to, but it was still the best salad I'd ever had in my life. And I could get as much as I wanted? Man.

"So, Monika, what about you?" Oh no. "What did you do in school?"

Think fast, Monika. Think fast.

Lia just sat there, looking at me expectantly.

What the heck am I supposed to tell her? Well, start with what I know, I guess.

I hesitated a moment more, deciding how to start. "I was in debate club, actually!"

"Debate club? Really?" Lia looked a little more surprised than I think she intended to.

"Ahaha, yeah, it was a fun time when we were actually debating. I was a smart kid back then, so I did pretty well, but… well, other people can be nasty sometimes, you know?"

"Oh, yeah, I know what that's like. There were cliques in the band just like everywhere else. Almost everyone liked me anyway¸ so I dodged most of it, but my friends didn't always get so lucky. There was a lot of drama. A lot of it. Not to mention we had to deal with begging the school for funding and the football team -" she practically spat the name out – "didn't like it very much because they just felt entitled to everything. So a couple of the football kids sometimes started shit when the band did fundraisers and stuff… ugh. Fuckers. Anyway, so what comes after the 'but?'"

"Well… I quit the debate team in my last year. All the politics took the fun out of it."

She looked apologetic. "I'm sorry it got that bad," Lia said, and then immediately brightened up. "But hey, they didn't deserve you in it anyway!"

I know I turned red in the face at that. "Ahahaha… I guess! But then I turned around and started my own club."

"With blackjack! And hookers!" Lia cut in, giggling.

"Ahh… what?" I said, immediately regretting it. Crap. That was a reference. I really hope it's not an important one.

"Oh my God, have you never seen Futurama? Oh, hon. We're gonna hafta fix that!"

I recovered as gracefully as I could. "No, I can't say I have. I've always meant to, but I just never got around to, I guess. Anyway, no, it was a literature club! We did poetry and books and even a little bit of manga, plus Natsuki's cupcakes…" I trailed off as I realized what I'd just said, even before the inevitable pang of depression kicked in.

I thought I saw Lia's eyes visibly widen for a split second before she spoke again. "Oh, you were one of those nerds, huh?" she teased. "Nah, I've read a few books in my day too. Not anything you'd call literature, really, but I do like to read when I have a little bit of spare time."

"Ah, yeah, I get you. Maybe I can get you to read a thing or two? The whole reason I started that club was because I just really do love reading and writing and, well, more importantly, I love getting other people into it! Poems are magical to me, and sharing that with other people… well, it's kind of a passion of mine! Anyway, what have you read?"

"Uhhhhhhhhh..." Lia was suddenly and, from what I could tell, very uncharacteristically quiet.

I picked up on it right away for what it probably was. "It's okay. You know, one of my friends in the club was really embarrassed about what she liked to read too. She was really into manga. Poor girl was terrified to tell anyone, but honestly, under ordinary circumstances, I don't think anybody would have cared at all. I poked a little fun at her just to try and cheer her up, but I wasn't ever mean about it. Go ahead. You can tell me!"

"Okay…" she said. "I pretty much only read fanfiction nowadays. I've read some even for things I've never played or read or seen and I feel really bad about it sometimes and honestly I've never told anybody…."

"Oh, for gosh sakes, Lia!" I laughed. "That's perfectly fine!" I actually knew about something relevant to this, for once. Ethan had once ranted to me in one of his vent sessions in the text box about how little respect people got for fan works. I still remember it word for word, partly because I was mostly just lines of code at the time so I literally couldn't forget it, and partially because he was almost as animated about it as he was about the last election.

"I just don't get it, Monika. Authors, and a lot of their snobbier fans, shit on people for loving their worlds so much that they write stories about them. Anne Rice sued the ever-loving shit out of people for writing fics about her characters so badly that you still can't write anything about her worlds without getting sued, and it's been almost 30 years since the first ones went up online. George R. R. Martin is the most popular author in the world right now and he's vocal about how possessive he is of his characters. He even says writers are lazy! It makes no goddamn sense! I mean, take Wicked for fuck's sakes! Wicked is one of the most popular and beloved Broadway musicals of all time, but you wanna know what it is? Wicked, the musical, is an adaptation of Wicked, the book, which is a literal fanfic – with an entirely different tone – of The Wizard of Oz, the movie, which in turn is an adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the book! And while we're on musicals, let's talk about Victor Hugo! The Hunchback of Notre Dame got made into a Disney movie with a largely different cast of characters, and yet people still love both of them! But God forbid some kid who loves Harry Potter writes a fanfic nowadays! I mean, bad example because Jo Rowling ispeople are still awful about it. AGH. Sorry."

I more or less relayed what Ethan had told me to okay with people writing fics about her world, but people are still awful about it. AGH. Sorry."

I more or less relayed what Ethan had told me to Lia, which got a wry grin from her.

"You know, I never told him that I read fic, but I've still heard almost that exact same rant from Ethan before. I guess he gives that rant to everyone!" She laughed to herself for a few seconds before she recovered. "Anyway, promise you're not gonna judge me about it?"

"Of course not, Lia! You're my friend!~"

She smiled warmly at me.

"Alright then. You about done? Because speaking of magic like you brought up there a minute ago, I wanna get home and get down to work on your little dude to bring on Saturday."

Truth be told, I definitely was starting to feel full. I must have lost track of how much salad I'd eaten. Salad or not, I made a mental note to work out harder at the pool the next day. Backstory-me worked really hard to get this body to where it was and I wasn't going to let her down.

I started to pull out my spending money – Ethan left me some in case I got hungry for something we didn't have, at least until he could get me a spare debit card – only to have Lia reach across the table and smack my hand. "You put that away, I invited you, this is my treat."

"But…"

"No buts! Shut up, I'm paying!"

##################################################################

I never knew a luh, luh-luh, a love like this…

My phone went off again on the trip back. That was my tone for  Ethan's messages. Ahaha. This ought to be good.

And it was. He'd taken the time spell out the word "BABE" in heart emojis.

My boy was one sappy, sappy man, and I loved it. I giggled, feeling a little giddy inside.

Lia just looked over at me, and I couldn't resist; I showed her the text and she busted out laughing. "Oh, I am so going to give him so much shit for this. He likes to play hardass on Saturdays, but he's nothing but a lovey-dovey softieeeeeee~" she sang.

"But," she continued, "for real, I've never seen him happier. I mean really, I've known him since I moved up here and he's been by far the happiest I have ever seen. He really lucked out." We pulled up to a stop light and she leaned over and hugged me. "I really appreciate it. Andy aside, Ethan's been my best friend since… forever, and it makes me super happy to see him like this. So, uh, thank you. So much."

I wasn't sure what to say, really. I was besieged by a tsunami of emotions and just about ready to cry at that.

"Um, that said, break his heart and I break your face."

And the moment was gone.

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Lia's apartment was a lot messier than ours. Not that I minded or anything, but it was right there. The reason became apparent about three seconds later, when an absolutely adorable grey-blue cat made its presence known by slamming itself into my leg and purring like a jackhammer.

"Oh, yeah, Monika, this is Mystra! She's a Russian Blue and she's three years old and she's super friendly and she's purrfect and I love her and it looks like she loves you too!"

I barely heard a word Lia said, much less register the pun, because I was down in a squat and cooing and playing with Mystra faster than Lia could even shut the door. "Oh you're a beautiful kitty, yes you are!" Before I knew it she jumped up on my lap and kept purring right against me. For the second time in a week, I fell in love. Of course, as cats are wont to do, Mystra got bored of it pretty quickly and walked over to her mom, who picked her up and carried her with us over to the living area.

"Russian Blues are easier on people with allergies, quiet, and don't shed too much, so the landlord's perfectly cool with her. I was so happy when she said yes, because I love this little bundle of joy so much…" Mystra purred a little at that. Smart kitty. "So, let me pull up Hulu and get some Futurama going while I get out my books. Andy's a traditionalist so almost all our books are in dead tree. I'm trying to remember where I put them.…"

I took a seat on the couch and waited and watched. Immediately I related heavily to the protagonist in a way I'm pretty sure nobody else on the planet could have. I felt so bad for Fry… waking up in a strange world with nobody to guide him….

Lia snapped me out of my reverie. "Want something to drink, hon? Water? Milk? Pepsi? Tea?"

"Ah, I could go for some tea, actually!"

"I've got regular iced tea, orange iced tea, and Earl Grey."

"Mmm… Earl Grey? I'm okay with that. Please?"

She put a pot on while I kept watching, transfixed. I laughed, I cried, I generally got way more into Fry's misadventures than I probably should have, pausing only to take sips of my tea, which she brought me before heading into the next room to look. The whole time, though, I was straining to hear over the sounds of shuffling and piles of stuff falling over from the next room. A full half-hour later, Lia came out with a hefty stack of hardcover books, all of them with Pathfinder Roleplaying Game printed across the front, with subtitles like Core Rulebook, Advanced Class Guide, Advanced Player's Guide, Advanced Race Guide, Pathfinder Unchained, Ultimate Combat….

"This right here is every single Pathfinder book ever printed. I've got a bunch of the Adventure Paths that add new classes and gear and spells on my laptop, and I've got the small set of third-party books he allows too" – she motioned to a separate stack of paperbacks – "all right here. Let me do one last thing and we can get started." She pulled out her phone.

##################################################################

Ten minutes later, I found out just what Lia'd done. As she was going over the different boxes on a character sheet, we heard a knock on the door, accompanied by a quiet, mousy voice. "It's me, Lia. Can I come in?"

After an acknowledgement from Lia, the door swung open, and Tsuki was immediately ambushed by an overly-friendly cat.

"Aw, hi, Mystra!" she whispered sweetly as she shut the door behind her. Mystra responded by jumping straight up into Tsuki's arms. I swear that kitty was friendlier than any dog I ever met in my life before or since.

Carrying the cat with her, Tsuki joined me on the couch. "Hey, Monika. Lia told me you might need some help building a character.…" I saw an evil glimmer in her eye that I would absolutely not have expected from the tiny, slight Japanese girl. "Let us just say I'm pretty good at that."

"Just think of it like this, Monika," Lia piped up. "I'll be the person helping you with character concepts, and Tsuki here will be the devil on the other shoulder helping you make sure you don't get preferential treatment from your boyfriend by way of pissing him off enough that he fucking throws books at you."

"Ah…." I wavered.

"What she means," Tsuki said, "is that I like to build characters that are not useless. Unfortunately, one person's 'not useless' is another person's 'overpowered.' Oh well."

"So," Lia picked up from Tsuki, "have you thought any about what sort of character you want to play? It's totally okay to play something you know if you don't have any ideas. Don't worry about everything having to be totally original and different. Think of it as, like, writing a book for the first time! It's okay to have a self-insert. Plenty of writers got their start writing God-awful self-insert wish fulfillment stories, after all, and yet people seem to like them for some dumbass reason!"

I thought about it for a moment.

"Well, my main talents are singing and playing and writing, so… maybe a bard?"

"That sounds about right," Lia replied.

"And I love playing bards!" the devilish black-haired girl chimed in. "Nobody ever notices that the bard is the reason everybody is winning fights, so you can be as OP as you want and no one will ever be the wiser! So I can be a lot of help for this."

"Now," Lia continued, "we're starting at level 7… I'd recommend just playing a straight bard with no archetypes or anything for your first character. So, an ordinary bard. What do you think your character will be like?"

"Ah. Well." I thought some more, reaching down to give some scratches to the beautiful blue purring machine currently looping through my legs. "I'd say she's going to be Good, Neutral Good maybe, and she just cares about helping people. She's a total sap for romance and adventure, and sees beauty in everything. She'll worship the goddess of love-"

"Shelyn," the blonde interrupted.

"-and she'll be driven by… a great regret in her past. Maybe… bards just do magic naturally, right? She did something awful with her magic to someone that she couldn't take back, and she set out to atone for it and spread goodness and cheer. But she's still got the anger and the jealousy in her that made her do it in the first place, and she has to keep it under control all the time."

"…I like it," both of the other girls agreed.

Lia paused thoughtfully for a moment. "Maaaaaaaybe a tiefling like Tsuki has? They're descended from evil outsiders like devils and shit and good tieflings are always struggling with their natures. That'd fit."

Tsuki took a sip of her own tea, then spoke. "I agree. And they have a lot of options to customize them to what you want – different score bonuses, different backgrounds, and things like that, and most of them are good for bards. Tieflings are a powerful race if you know what you're doing. I think perhaps rakshasa-spawn would fit the best; they give a charisma and a dexterity bonus, which are good for you, and your lack of self-control fits nicely with their wisdom penalties. They are described as charming and deft and full of subtlety and guile. They don't necessarily look like their forebears, however; they can take a trait that makes them almost entirely human, much like aasimars can. Which, if you ask me, was a long time coming, and does a lot to bridge the power gap between the aasimar and the tiefling, but that is beside the point."

…I was stunned for a moment. Tsuki was, from what I knew, a very quiet girl who didn't talk all that much. But here she was, railing off facts and figures and recommendations like it was going out of style. She was clearly passionate about what she was doing. This, I figured, must be the thing she enjoys, the thing that gets her out of her shell. I found it pretty funny that it was… what did Ethan call it, character optimization, though. What I didn't find funny was how much it reminded me of another of the club members I'd left behind….

"Yeah. I can go with that," I decided. "I think it fits."

"Alright then," Lia said, writing on the character sheet. "Bard 7, rakshasa-spawn tiefling, neutral good, Shelyn… oh, what's her name going to be?"

I thought about it for a second. May as well complete the trifecta.

"Something simple. How about Amy?"

Mystra jumped up on the table and meowled something akin to agreement.