A brief silence hovered in the air, but then a small bird chirped and darted across the garden to snatch up a small bug. Danika checked quickly to make sure that it hadn't been her pet firefly, and Aishin's little bat swooped in with a message a moment later.
The wizard's wife stuck her head out of a window and called, "Dinner is ready you old elf!"
Wise Ardlee smiled at them and said, "The secret to a good marriage is to maintain realistic expectations of each other, and stay out of the kitchen when you're told to get out."
He vanished a moment later, but instead of the usual closed and silent tower, they could hear his voice float out of the window as he told his wife, "Wow, you were right, and it came out beautifully."
She replied cheerfully, "I told you it would if you'd stop messing with it."
MatchlessMinion had an odd expression when he whispered, "I think we're done here, let's go?"
Danika nodded and followed him while reading Aishin's reply with a frown. She wondered what he meant by saying that it was good that she wasn't his fan. She thought of the scene she'd just witnessed and wondered uncomfortably if it was his way of telling her to stay out of his kitchen, to let him keep his work separate from their relationship.
MatchlessMinion turned back to her suddenly and declared, "I'm going to go ahead and log out from here. I have something to do in the morning, but I'll play in the afternoon."
Danika blinked and told him, "Alright, and thanks for all your help!"
"Thanks for what help? I haven't really done anything tonight?" he replied questioningly.
"Pfft," she stuck her tongue out at him and snorted. "Seriously?" she questioned.
"Yeah?" he replied a little glumly.
"Ok mister grand vizier, or guild strategist, or whatever you want to call the manipulative paw behind the throne that's guiding our guild upgrades and preparing for future expenses," she replied sweetly.
"No kingdoms," he replied with a laugh. "You don't get a throne, just a hat."
"Not planning your own desert kingdom then?" she teased.
"Nope," he replied with a grin. "Got to keep our fantasy game realistic right?"
"I prefer to keep it fun and relaxing?" she replied questioningly.
"Collecting things by the thousand is relaxing?" he asked doubtfully.
"Well, sometimes? But this is more like an epic quest with more cuddles and even cuter shapes at the end?" Danika explained.
"Okay!" he agreed with a laugh. "Night!" he declared, and logged out.
She looked at the little brook with its picturesque stepping stones that they'd halted in front of and wondered aloud, "What kind of hat is he expecting me to wear later?"
Hikaru circled her and landed on her head. The dark water reflected a small shining dragon with a green glow between her ears, and Danika added, "Maybe I really should have unlocked screenshots like the goddess said."
She yawned, and then remembered that Aishin's message had also said that he'd texted. She logged out a moment later. The link in the text took her to a popular social site that invited her to join in order to accept the friend request from TangledWords.
She tried to remember if she'd ever made an account for it, but after her usual usernames failed she told it to just make her a new account. Fortunately the site allowed her to just link it to her existing identity without having to undergo the entire registration process. Unfortunately it popped up a list of contacts who already used the site, and she missed the decline button if there had been one, so it helpfully added a slew of cousins and old gaming acquaintances.
She felt too lazy to do more than set her status to invisible before selecting to view TangledWords.
Shinichi's photos looked like most of them were taken by Naoki. Danika wasn't entirely certain what made her think that, but they were mostly posted by someone named Return!, whose profile was locked to her. There were a few selfies, and a handful of photos by other contacts who also had locked profiles.
Most of the photos he'd taken himself were organized into albums by locations visited, and from a quick scan were mostly landscapes. She didn't browse them thoroughly or look very far back, but from what she saw she thought that he was actually a pretty good photographer and wondered if it might have been an alternate career choice for him.
His birthday was in January. She'd both missed it, and was pretty certain that he hadn't said anything about it. His calendar was totally crammed, to the point where sometimes entries overlapped. It said that even this late at night on a Friday he had an hour to go on the event labeled: "Underneath - TV Studio Rec - Blue"
--
Shinichi crawled into the van when they finished. He was tired. A notification waited patiently on his phone, it said that Dawnstar had added him. He checked Dawnstar's photos to make sure that it was Danika and then gazed at his phone with very mixed feelings.
"What's the matter?" Hideki asked.
Naoki looked over and poked Shinichi. "What?" he asked.
"What's the matter? What are you looking at?" Hideki asked again.
Shinichi turned his screen off and replied, "Nothing, I'm just tired."
"So tired," Naoki agreed.
Hideki gave him a look, but didn't argue. "Yeah, glad we get next weekend off before we leave."
Thinking of that made Shinichi smile. "Yeah," he agreed. He leaned back and closed his eyes, but his mind popped up the photo that had bothered him. A photo of a much younger Danika standing on her own two feet, laughing at the camera, and clinging to the arm of another guy.
It had only been the fourth photo down. A moment later he sat up and turned his screen back on, created a new album, and uploaded all the pictures he'd taken of her. Naoki leaned over to see what he was doing and rolled his eyes.
A few moments later Naoki said hesitantly, "Your dragon is pretty cute in real life too, I guess, but… um, why didn't you ever mention that she's stuck in a chair?"
Shinichi looked up to see that Naoki had his own phone out and was holding out one of the better photos from the overlook. Akito and Kimitoshi both reached for Naoki's phone at the same time.
"Does that matter?" Shinichi asked a little defensively.
"If it really didn't matter, wouldn't you have said something about it before this?" Priyadarshi asked a little sharply from the front seat. "You guys know you have to keep your personal lives low profile," their manager continued. "And it may not be fair, but having an obviously disabled love interest is not going to be easy to keep low profile."
"She looks like she's a foreigner too," Kimitoshi added with a frown.
"Toshi, you're not helping," Naoki scolded, and snatched his phone back.
"She's not," Shinichi protested. "Her father might be though," he added uncertainly, "I can ask when we meet with him on Sunday."
Priyadarshi groaned and rubbed his face tiredly. He turned around far enough to look at the guys in the band. Naoki was silently gesturing "No!" He stopped when Shinichi turned to look at him and turned to look out the window.
Akito asked, "So what? She's Shin's girlfriend and our guild leader. It's not like we're going to get rid of her because she's a little awkward."
Kimitoshi snorted and agreed, "She's been awkward from the start. Knowing she's in a chair just explains a little bit of her weirdness."
"She's not weird," Shinichi protested. They all looked at him. "Ok, fine, she is, but only in a good way."
Naoki was the first one to laugh.