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One moment, the three of them were seated at Susie’s bedroom table, chatting openly as they feasted on Ralsei’s black tea and chocolate cheesecake. The next moment, Kris told a joke that made Susie laugh a little too hard. Unlike the other two, she held her cup in her palm—the heat was no issue for a dragon like her—rather than by the handle, because she feared repeating a past incident where the handle of a cup she’d been drinking from had snapped off and spilled tea everywhere. This time, though, Susie unconsciously clenched her fist around her teacup hard enough that the delicate ceramic shattered under the pressure, exploding tea down her front and across the table.
Kris and Ralsei both flinched. Susie physically jumped back out of her chair, sending it clattering loudly to the stone tiles. Everyone flinched again. Then shocked silence set in, weighing down on the atmosphere. For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the dripping of tea off the edge of the table, slowly spreading a reddish-brown stain across Susie’s pink rug.
Susie was the first person to speak. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated, and her breaths came out shallow yet ragged. “I—I’m so sorry,” she said, in a small, fragile voice. “I…I didn’t mean to—”
Ralsei pushed his chair back to stand from the table. He did it as gently as he could, so the wooden chair feet wouldn’t screech loudly against the stone floor, but Susie flinched anyway.
“Kris,” he said, speaking calm and evenly, “could you please go downstairs and fetch some towels from the kitchen?”
Kris remained frozen in their seat opposite Ralsei’s for a moment, gauntleted hands curled almost protectively around their half-full teacup. Then, they carefully set the cup down onto its saucer and hurried from the room, quietly closing the bedroom door behind them.
It was only when the click of their sabaton heels on stone faded from earshot that Ralsei rounded the table, padding over to Susie’s side. He stopped, staring in blank confusion, when Susie shrank away from his approach, her shoulders tensed and her hand clamped over the one that’d been holding the teacup.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated in a rush, “honestly, I didn’t mean to—I didn’t even realize, my body just—”
“Susie,” Ralsei cut in gently. “May I see your hand?”
She stared at him for a long moment, still stiff and wide-eyed. Then, gingerly, she let go of her injured hand and extended it towards him, palm facing up.
Ralsei peered at her hand. Susie’s fingers and palm were cut through, scales torn and flaking, with small lacerations from the sharp edges of ceramic. A few fragments had lodged themself into her skin, too. Blood ebbed lazily from the cuts, mixing with the tea coating her hand. The sight was enough to make Ralsei wince—Susie must have closed her hand with considerable force for the teacup shards to break through her tough hide even this much—but it was nothing his magic couldn’t heal.
“Does it hurt, Susie?” Ralsei asked.
Susie’s face scrunched up. “Does it matter? That—that was a teacup you gave me, and…I just broke it without even thinking…”
Ralsei smiled at her reassuringly. “It’s okay, Susie. It was just a teacup, and not even the kind that’s a darkner. I can always get you another.”
Susie tore her gaze away, scowling at the floor with gritted teeth.
Ralsei touched a hand to her wrist. Susie trembled at his touch, but she didn’t pull away from him. “I need to remove the pieces from your wounds, Susie. Your hand won’t heal properly, otherwise.”
“Do what you want,” Susie muttered.
Ralsei stepped forward and began to pick out the ceramic shards from Susie’s skin with surgical precision. She winced and hissed, tensing further as he worked, but she didn’t yank her hand out of his grip, nor did she protest.
The bedroom door opened again, and Kris walked in carrying a stack of fluffy towels in assorted colors. They set this down on the tabletop, on the clean side out of the blast radius of the tea.
“Kris, could you please clean the table?” Ralsei asked, without looking up.
Kris obeyed without a word, removing the first towel—green in color—off the top of the stack and unfolding it to mop up the spilled tea. The table hadn’t been damaged or discolored by the spillage; the liquid ran off the wood without soaking in or leaving stains behind. Kris attended to Susie’s table with more care than they bothered with cleaning up the kitchen table or counters at the Dreemurrs’ house; they didn’t let a single drop escape them. They collected the teacup shards that had scattered across the table surface into a small pile on the side, too; Kris’ knight gauntlets meant they could sweep the fragments around without fear of cutting themself.
Once Ralsei had removed the teacup shards from Susie’s hand, he picked up a towel—blue, this time—to dry off Susie’s hand. He dabbed blood and tea from the open wounds, and even cleaned under Susie’s claws and between her fingers.
Eventually, Susie—who had been watching the other two work in silence—spoke up again. “Aren’t you mad, Ralsei?” she asked, quiet and strained.
Ralsei paused, lifting his head to blink slowly at her. Susie didn’t meet his eyes. “I’m not mad, Susie. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“You—you should be angry with me. I broke your things because I couldn’t control my strength, again…”
“Susie, it’s alright. I know you didn’t mean it. Besides, I’ve accidentally broken teacups before…”
Susie bared her teeth. “You don’t have to hide it, you know.”
Ralsei glanced aside at Kris. Kris, who was kneeling on the floor to wipe down the tea that’d run to the underside of the table, met his gaze and shrugged their shoulders. “Hide…what?” Ralsei asked Susie.
“Will you quit the goody two-shoes act already?!” Susie snapped with sudden force. Ralsei flinched, barely managing not to jump away, and Kris froze up in the middle of scrubbing. “You can just say it, you know! If you’re mad, get mad! If you wanna hit me, hit me already! Just—stop smiling and being such a doormat all the time!”
Her words rang out loudly in the spacious bedroom. Kris and Ralsei stared at her without speaking, red and pink eyes blown wide. Susie withered under their gazes, her body curling in on itself, the more seconds ticked by.
“Forget it,” she muttered, finally yanking her wrist from Ralsei’s grasp. “I should—I’m just gonna go.”
She stormed toward the bedroom door, leaving a stunned Ralsei behind. Kris reacted first, this time, darting across the room in a few quick strides to block Susie from resting her hand on the doorknob.
Susie bared her fangs down at them. “Get out of my way, dude,” she growled.
Kris was unfazed. They crossed their arms tight across their cuirass and then shook their head, just once.
Susie clamped her uninjured hand down on their exposed pauldron. Her grip was tight, as if she was threatening to crush the plate armor underneath, like she had with the teacup. “I’m serious. You really think you can stop me?” Kris was thin and light, while she was huge and muscular. In a contest of strength, the winner was obvious.
Kris only squared their jaw and stonily met her gaze from under their long bangs, brows tense and eyes hard, as if daring her to go ahead. They didn’t look the slightest bit afraid. Only the tight press of their lips betrayed how they felt. Besides the intensity of their gaze and their unyielding posture, their position—and Susie’s—was a mirror of incidents at school from months ago.
Ralsei rushed over, hands raised placatingly. “You two! Please don’t fight, okay?! Susie, I still haven’t been able to heal your hand! If you do anything else, you might make the wounds worse, or give yourself an infection, or—”
“Does it matter?” Susie snapped, though she didn’t take her eyes off Kris for a second. “I’m tough. I can handle it.”
“I know you are, Susie,” Ralsei insisted, his voice pitching high in desperation while he curled his fists into his scarf, “but that doesn’t mean you need to suffer through the pain just because you feel guilty!”
Kris still didn’t speak, but—without breaking eye contact with Susie—they tilted their head in Ralsei’s direction, as if saying, Listen to him.
Susie squeezed her eyes shut, her body trembling as she was caught between the conflicting urges to keep pushing forward or give in. The urge to snap at the other two for being utter hypocrites. After a tense silence, she finally sighed, letting her body relax, and her hand slipped from Kris’ shoulder.
“Fine,” she muttered. “Whatever. I don’t care.”
Kris unfolded their arms, the tension draining from their own face and their gaze softening.
Ralsei tentatively rested a hand on Susie’s arm. “Susie…will you let me heal you, now?”
Without looking at him, Susie turned on her heel and trudged back to the table, pulling out the untouched fourth chair and dropping herself into it. Ralsei hesitated, then followed behind her. It wasn’t until he’d lifted Susie’s wounded hand in both of his own that Kris left the door and returned to cleaning, this time trying to sponge tea out of the stained rug before it dried completely.
Ralsei cupped Susie’s hand in his, closed his eyes, and murmured his healing prayer. Soft green light flickered, and Susie’s wounds closed up in an instant, skin knitting itself back together and scales fixing themselves. When the light faded, it was as if Susie had never cut her hand to begin with.
“There we go,” Ralsei announced, smiling cheerily. “You should be all better now, Susie.”
Susie didn’t look any happier, though. She stared down at her hand despondently, instead of meeting Ralsei’s gaze or returning his smile. “Thanks,” she mumbled, eventually.
Ralsei kept smiling, though his expression grew somber. His hands remained around Susie’s, fingers light on her scales, and Susie seemingly had no will or energy to pull hers away.
“Sorry,” Susie went on, haltingly, as she twirled a stray lock of hair around the index finger of her free hand. “I shouldn’t have…said what I said. I wasn’t—wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay, Susie,” Ralsei murmured. “If you need to yell at anyone…I’m fine with taking it on.”
“You shouldn’t,” Susie muttered. “You deserve better than that, dude.”
“You don’t deserve to be in pain, either, Susie.” Ralsei rubbed at her palm with his thumbs in slow, soothing motions. “This was just an accident, okay? So, let’s not worry about it any more.”
“And what if I do it again?” Susie asked, almost accusingly.
“Then I’ll heal your wounds and fetch you another new teacup,” Ralsei replied without hesitation. “And if I run out of teacups, I’ll make even more.”
Susie sighed heavily and rubbed at her forehead with the heel of her palm. “You’re impossible, man.”
Ralsei only smiled wider.
At last, he let go of Susie’s hand, excusing himself to fetch Susie a change of clothes from her closet. Silence pervaded again, but it was more comfortable this time, rather than strained with tension. Kris, meanwhile, finally gave up on trying to squeeze tea out of Susie’s rug and pulled it out from under the table legs, setting it aside with Susie’s tea-soaked clothes to be given a proper wash later.
Watching them, an idea suddenly occurred to Ralsei. Once Susie had changed, Ralsei took Susie’s hand and then lifted it to his face, brushing his lips gently across her scaly knuckles.
Susie’s head whipped around to face him, looking at him properly for the first time in minutes. “Wh-what are you doing, dude?!”
Ralsei smiled innocently at her. “It helps when I do this, too, doesn’t it?”
Susie’s cheeks were starting to color towards red. “I—I guess so,” she grumbled, glaring sharply at the pink-painted tabletop.
“Hey,” Kris cut in from across the table, audibly miffed. “I’m the knight here, and that’s my shtick. Don’t steal it.”
Susie snorted. “You need to act faster, then,” she teased on reflex.
“Can’t you let me try it, just this once?” Ralsei asked Kris, pouting.
Kris folded their arms and tilted their head, furrowing their brows in exaggerated consideration. “Only because it’s Susie,” they concluded, as if this was a great honor they were bestowing upon Ralsei.
Ralsei grinned. “Thank you, Kris!”
“H-hey!” Susie stammered, glancing between the two of them. “What did you just sign me up for?!”
Kris only uncrossed their arms and smirked cheekily at her.
Ralsei decided to show Susie some mercy by letting go of her hand again. “Well—how about I get you another teacup, Susie, and we finish the last of the cheesecake?”
“Um…whatever you want,” Susie mumbled, nervous again. “If you, uh, don’t care about me breaking more of your stuff, that is.”
Ralsei surprised her by leaning up on his tiptoes to press a kiss against her cheek. “Of course not,” he murmured. “I know you would never do it on purpose, Susie.”
Susie blinked at him in disbelief, then back down at her feet. “S-sure.”
He left the room to retrieve a fresh cup and saucer from the kitchens. Susie flopped back into her seat with a heavy sigh. Kris seated themself opposite Susie, resting their chin in one gauntleted hand as they stared at her face from behind their hair.
Susie scowled. “And what are you smiling at, dumbass?”
Kris didn’t say anything; nor did the lazy, sickeningly affectionate smile on their face waver. Susie huffed and turned her head away, folding her arms, doing everything she could to seem put off. It was almost a relief for her when Ralsei returned, a new teacup matching her set in hand, and the three of them resumed eating and talking as if nothing had happened to begin with.