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Kirsten pushed little divots into her ice cream with her spoon while her friends talked around her at their table. Usually, she was a pretty big part of their long animated discussions over a sundae at Basrar's, but her thoughts were drifting today. They had the restaurant mostly to themselves, but she thought she saw a girl sitting in a booth in the corner looking at them. When she turned to glance at her though, she was staring resolutely and with a suspiciously red face at her own dessert.
"Okay The Ball, truth or dare?"
"Um, let's go with truth."
"How much sleep have you gotten this week?"
"Never mind, I choose dare."
"I dare you to sleep tonight."
"…Let's play would you rather!"
There was a chorus of 'boo's that caught the attention of another couple sitting nearby, and Kirsten felt herself sinking slightly into her seat.
The conversation carried on around her unburdened, shifting from the classic Truth or Dare into the always enjoyed Would You Rather. She vaguely registered Gorgug asking Adaine if she would rather only be able to perform first level spells or have to go back to wearing her old "uniform" every time they fought, much to her consternation. Adaine was just about to pose a question for Fabain after finally deliberating on her own answer, the question starting with something about sea shanties before Kirsten's mouth worked against her brain in saying words she hadn't consciously decided to speak..
"Do you guys think we're weird?" She asked. The rest of the table turned to look at her with various levels of surprise.
"Yes," Adaine said without a trace of hesitation. "Every minute I spend with you all feels like a fever dream, and I don't even fully understand what dreams are."
"They're just like movies in your head," Gorgug shrugged. This was a conversation they had frequently, and it almost always ended pretty much the same way. Namely, with it being decided that it was incredibly weird that Fig's ability to sleep rather than trance hadn't tipped off her parents that she wasn't an elf, or with Gorgug recounting a strange dream he had recently in an attempt to help Adaine understand, a secret but somehow simultaneously obvious ploy on his part to watch her face grow more confused.
"From your perspective?" Adaine asked doubtfully, just as she always did. "That makes no sense."
"Guys," Kirsten interrupted before the conversation could go too off course. "I'm serious, do you think we're weird?"
"Weird is subjective," Riz said. "From a cis, straight, and neurotypical person's perspective, we're probably all freaks. But I don't think you guys are that odd."
"We don't think you're weird either, Riz," Adaine smiled. "What brought this on, Kirsten?"
"Some guy in my AP Healing class said that it's weird that I don't worship the god who first granted me my powers and that I pretty much invented a new god and then abandoned it, and then he said something about how he guess that it makes me fit in our group though."
"He sounds like an asshole," Fabian shrugged. "I'll beat him up for you."
"Violence is never the answer," she chided. Fabian just shrugged again. "I don't know though, it just got me thinking about the fact that even in terms of this school we're all kind of weird."
"How so?" Fig asked. She sat with her guitar in her lap, tuning with one hand and shoving her gross pineapple ice cream into her mouth with the other, and honestly, Kirsten had about a million ways to answer that question just involving one Figerouth Faeth the Insatiable, but she elected for the easiest.
"We just are," she said. "I mean, Riz brings a gun to school with him every day-"
"I'm a ranged weapons rouge, what do you want from me? A boy an arrow? As if."
"-And Adaine has a giant two foot diameter orb that she uses as an arcane focus and a magic jacket-"
"The orb was a gift and the jacket is cool!"
"And sometimes Fabian will just pause in the middle of talking to someone to answer a question that his motorcycle just telepathically asked him-"
"He gets very fussy when I don't respond to him immediately. Do you want him plowing into the school because he's worried I got kidnapped?"
"-Gorgug is a half orc raised by gnomes who spent his first year in high school asking everyone if they were his dad. I mean, the list could go on."
"I don't know, I still don't think we're anything to write home about." Fig made a face while she loosened her 'D' string and strummed a g-chord, pumping her fist in excitement when it came out sounding in tune. "Thank fuck! That stupid ass string is never in tune."
"Stop talking so loudly!" Kirsten hissed. "People are looking at us!"
"Wow, and I thought I had bad social anxiety," Adaine said with faint amusement. "I get is Kirsten, I really do, but we're the kids who took down Kalvaxious, of course, people are going to notice us more than the kids whose final project was whatever boring-ass shit the rest of the school does."
"I dunno," Kirsten said with a heavy sigh as she slouched further into her chair. "Like at first it was all, ah cool! We're the Bad Kids! People don't make fun of us anymore because we're basically celebrities! But at the same time, I'm just your healer who can't pick a god. Who cares who healed the people that took down Kalvaxious when you can talk to the people that actually did the takedown?"
"I'm sorry" Fig scoffed. "Did you miss the part where we all would've died if you hadn't, well, died and came back with Principal Augefort? We were down to our last hit points and pure luck before you came back with the most powerful magic of all."
"Chronomancy?"
"No. Well, yes, but I actually meant the magic of friendship."
"Aw!" Kirsten cried. "Fig! That's so gay!"
"You're so gay!" Fig cried in return.
"We're all gay," Riz said. "And all extremely lucky to have a healer that apparently not even death can stop. Even if you have absolutely shit dexterity."
"Fuck you too," the cleric smiled. "The Bad Kids Impromptu Group Therapy strikes again."
"Next session is everyone holding Riz down while Adaine casts sleep on him," Fabian suggested.
"This is goblin centric bullying and I won't stand for it," Riz deadpanned as he ate another spoonful of his slowly melting chocolate ice cream. "Like you fuckers could even catch me. Roguish dexterity, remember? I've got uncanny dodge for days."
"Not if you have a level of exhaustion," Adaine pointed out.
The bickering continued until it slowly morphed into the party once more shouting their sexualities at each other, which Kirsten was slowly realizing was a bit too common for them. That was probably her fault. Oops.
And as she joined in with the Express purpose of adding fuel to the chaos fire and calling out as many of her friends as possible, she paid no mind to the girl in the other booth watching their loud animated conversation with a hint of disdain. They were the Bad Kids, bitch, and if they could sit in a prison for two months and kill a dragon they could also be a little loud in the ice cream parlor, okay? They earned it.