Data Dragon Danika

MatchlessMinion logged in awhile after he"d left, at the same time as Shrubbery, which made Danika smile a bit. She met up with them and they did a guild quest together.

They also talked about it and then instructed their guild"s half parrot NPC that the third guild quest accepted should have a week long deadline, instead of a day. The NPC warned them that this would reduce the number of eligible quests, but even MatchlessMinion who was pretty keen on having the guild make more coin agreed that it would reduce the pressure for everyone.

"Besides, it"ll give me more time to acquire quests of my own, which are generally more profitable than our average guild specific quests have been," he said cheerfully.

Danika rather liked the quest this change gave them, that Song Solvin acquired for them that evening. A rather dour player who had been feeling quite down on his luck lately, according to Song, had requested that they find: "A suitable farming opportunity for a retired infantryman looking to spend his retirement quietly. Near somewhere with good fishing, would be a bonus."

When Danika had asked their guild representative, "Does that mean he"ll also need someone who can let him change his character"s path to farming?" Song had a.s.sured her that he had already set out upon that path on his own.

"His skills are not very advanced yet though," Song Solvin cautioned. "So the opportunity will need to support working with simple crops or animals."

"Oh, right," Danika replied. "I forgot that farming can also mean raising animals." For some reason the giant snails that had plagued the NPC farmer who"d given their first guild quest surfaced in her mind.

She finished up her night sitting in Shrubbery"s garden instead of her own, so that Hikaru could spend time socializing with the other fireflies. It probably didn"t matter, since pets seemed to be much more like standard game characters than the average NPC in "Living Jade Empire", but Danika felt like even the little beetle had its own distinct little personality.

She was practicing her new illusion skill, and was startled when she caught the interest of a pa.s.serby. A silver haired, but quite unusually, dark skinned elf called out from the edge of Shrubbery"s garden, "Hey, you! How"d you hide your path?"

"What?" Danika asked. She looked around, but there was no one else currently in sight. "Me?" she questioned.

"Yeah you," he agreed. "Zip Zing or whatever."

She examined him with a.n.a.lyze Target activated and saw that his name was Auvic, and he was an illusionist with a subpath of necromancer. Both wizards and priests were in the magic path branch, but it was rare to see someone who mixed them. Both of his paths were specialized too, so he probably spent a lot of time playing.

"So how"d you do it?" he demanded.

"I haven"t hidden my path, I don"t have one," she replied a little warily.

"Yeah right," he sneered. "I"m a illusion specialist, so I know that you need to be at least a wizard with four cantrips mastered to learn the spell you"re using."

"You seem pretty sure that you know everything," she replied with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I know enough!" he replied a bit defensively.

His response changed his demeanor in her eyes from rather sharp and potentially dangerous to rather young and awkwardly curious.

"What are you doing around here?" she asked curiously. "Did you come to visit the koi ponds?"

"It"s none of your business," he replied sharply.

"Well, neither am I," she pointed out. "But I really don"t have a path, although I do have a subpath. I was gifted a skill that lets me learn skills that most characters don"t get until they reach Genius ranking."

"Woah, how"d you get that!?" he exclaimed.

He sounded younger the longer they talked, and Danika suppressed another laugh. They talked for a little bit before he admitted that he"d come by to visit the tea house across from Shrubbery"s garden. "They have the best teacakes in the game," he explained enthusiastically.

She logged out earlier than usual on a weekend, since she didn"t want to be tired when she finally faced her father again after so long. Her emotions had settled from angry into a sort of wary hurt, closer to her usual bitter resignation, but she still firmly intended to ask him what he"d meant by telling Shinichi that he was why she couldn"t walk.

--

Shinichi picked her up in the morning. She"d told him that they could just meet at the restaurant if he wanted to sleep longer, but he admitted to her surprise, "I"m too nervous to go by myself."

Danika was torn between teasing him and trying to rea.s.sure him, but when she stopped to think about how to rea.s.sure him, she found herself getting nervous as well. She paused at the edge of her floor before moving into her chair.

"Danika?" he questioned. She looked up at him. "Am I in your way? Should I wait outside or move onto the floor?"

"No, sorry, you"re fine," she said quickly, and shifted herself over into her chair.

--

When they got off the bus he complained, "I should have gotten a van so that we could at least sit next to each other."

"Sorry," she replied contritely. The bus had been crammed full and he"d had to ride in the far back while she"d been stuck in the chair spot beside the door.

He took a deep breath and then heaved a long sigh and rubbed his neck. "No," he said more calmly, "that"s not something you need to be sorry for, it"s not even a big deal. I"m just, um, being kind of clingy because I"m nervous I guess." He grimaced for a moment.

Danika scooted her chair closer and reached up to tuck her fingers into his. He clasped her hand tightly. "I seem pretty silly don"t I?" he asked quietly.

"No." She looked up at him and admitted, "I"m pretty nervous too. I haven"t introduced anyone to my father in years. I haven"t even talked to him before the other day in almost three years."

Shinichi looked even more worried, so she took a deep breath of her own and let it out before adding, "But it"s ok. I"ll be embarra.s.sed if we fight in front of you, but it"s not like I need him to approve of you or anything. You don"t need to be afraid of, of… um, any of the usual stuff?"

He shifted around in front of her and knelt suddenly. He leaned over her legs awkwardly and bent close enough to hug her tightly. His face was buried against her shoulder and her cheeks were flaming as random strangers turned to look at them. His voice was m.u.f.fled as he said, "I"m most afraid of becoming another thing you"ll argue about."

Danika closed her eyes so that she couldn"t see people staring and hugged him back for a minute. She realized that she was expecting to fight with her father, and that if she did Shinichi would probably feel guilty. Her fingers tightened against him, but she said decisively, "Then I won"t argue."

After a moment he laughed a little and pushed back to look into her face. "You don"t have to try to promise anything like that. You can argue if that"s what the two of you need in order to communicate."

"Well, at the moment I"d like to communicate that being like this in public is embarra.s.sing," she complained.

That made him laugh for real, and instead of leaning back in to kiss her he lifted her hand and kissed her fingers and then stood up quickly. "OK, I"ll try to behave more respectably for the rest of the morning," he promised.

"Only this morning?" she teased, even though she was relieved by resuming a more ordinary progress along the pavement beside him.

He grinned at her and replied quietly, "Maybe we can negotiate terms for extended periods of respectability later."