Chapter 28: 28: Connected In Spirit

Wind. 

Now safely at home, back in her own room all alone, Kaitlyn laid there, staring at the ceiling with her covers pulled all the way up, forming a cocoon around her. The images of the afternoon and night that just transpired now running through her head, she laid there staring off into the darkness, feeling the wind blow into the room from the window. 

Crawling out of her cocoon to close the window before slinking back into her cocoon of warmth, Kaitlyn continued laying there, staring at the ceiling with distant eyes. 

‘What are these thoughts...’

‘I mean like... I’ve had friends before! Like... Jayce, Sasha, Dexter, and Chelsea... granted they were, like, a lot older than me and also like we were in war, but still! We were friends...’

“What are these feelings...”

Muttering the last line out loud to herself, Kaitlyn, still mystified at her own strange giddiness that blossomed in her chest earlier, rolled over, trying to banish those thoughts out of her mind and fall asleep. 

...

“... I hope she didn’t think I was annoying...”

Unsuccessful at changing the topic of her thoughts at all, Kaitlyn continued laying there, now staring at the wall instead. 

‘It was really fun... I hope we can do it again sometime.’

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Meanwhile, back at the inn were four whisper shouting individuals... 

A few moments prior, Rachel, who was on cloud nine and probably a few more, was walking down the hall towards the inn room she was sharing with her party members. Rachel, now alone without anyone around to judge her, had a slight bounce to her step, two trains of thought running through her mind. 

One side of Rachel’s brain, still remembering Kaitlyn’s figure from sparring and from previous encounters had the gay panic’inator running at full power. 

‘Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, she’s so coooool!!! I could never... Literally if there was a movie or TV show on her everyone would be simping... me included!!’

‘Like do you see those poses in the middle of fighting, imagine if that was slowed down, her two swords dancing, slicing, slamming, destroying everything?? Literally better than any marvel movie.’

One the other side of Rachel’s brain, there was a small gremlin, cheering at how cute Kaitlyn was, her awkward and embarrassed moments being snapshotted and archived into Rachel’s brain. 

With these two trains of thoughts on her mind and an exuberant expression on her face, Rachel pushed the door open, expecting the others to either be asleep or be doing their own individual things. However, with the door still only half open, she was greeted by the sight of everyone playing cards and sitting on top of her own bed, having even moved all her stuff to a remote corner of the room!

Looking up having just lost the round, but also succeeding in sabotaging Josephine, Damien laughed, “Look who it is!! The player! How was your ‘friendly night out’?”

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Closing the door behind her and walking over to where they were playing cards, Rachel asked while also squinting at the group who all had annoying smiles plastered on their faces, “Why do you say it like that... It really was just between friends, I swear!” 

“You win, Oliver...” Josephine conceded, throwing her cards into the middle pile seeing that she had no way to win anymore before turning back to look at Rachel with an even larger shit-eating grin on her face, “I hope you had fun~ just the two of you~!”

Expecting an amused but also annoyed reaction, Josephine was surprised when Rachel fell silent, a small pink blush climbing up her ears as they heated up, leaning back towards Oliver and whispering into his ear, “Something definitely happened, I know Rachel gay panics a lot, but this isn’t a normal reaction for her...”

A second later after a slight pause, Josephine, in a hushed whisper seeing Damien and Rachel enter a conversation, added “I mean, you’ve known her for longer though, what do you think?”

“It’s... certainly abnormal,” Oliver agreed, a pensive expression on his face as he whispered back, organizing the loose cards for the next round, “Something definitely happened.” 

Finishing their hushed, speedy conversation, Josephine shifted her position, sliding over closer to Oliver, motioning to Rachel, “Sit down, you can join us this next round, we finished just as you walked in! Also, yeah, you can put the stuff you’re holding over there!”

With Josephine pointing to the corner where all her stuff was gathered, Rachel walked over to the corner, plopping her stuff down while muttering loud enough for them to hear, “Fuckers... the lot of you...” 

Breaking out into laughter while dealing the cards, Josephine hollered with a happy smile, “Love you too, honey bun!” 

Sitting down with an amused laugh, Rachel asked, “Where in the world did ‘honey bun’ come from...”

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In another part of town... 

“Ahhhhh, I have so much work...” groaned a man, laying down against his desk that had towers of paperwork piled on it, “My schedule is like... never open... the world is against me!” 

Handing her dearest another pile of paperwork, Sasha, the current queen of the country laughed, spinning while walking towards the door, “Good luck~ I’ll be waiting in bed, I can’t help with any of the paperwork right now anyway!” 

“Noooo...” Jayce cried out, making a futile attempt at reaching towards the door, hoping that Sasha would come back. 

Click. 

With the door closing Jayce could only fall back onto his desk, reading the paperwork under the lamplight with his head resting sideways against the desk, “Stupid budgets... who cares how much money the ‘palace garden committee for decor and mood’ gets... argh...” 

Throwing the paper aside, Jayce looked at his schedule one more time, writing a reminder to tell a messenger to inform the guild his next opening would be a week from now, and that he hoped they could stage their expedition into the dungeon during that time. 

As the reminder was finished, Jayce slammed it onto the desk, not caring that several pieces of paperwork were now strewn on the floor. Laughing while stretching, he decided he’d deal with all the paperwork the next day, heading off to bed to join his love.