Rhys Elena (Red Spinel) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brokencrescendo) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
zenderael_rl2012-06-23 09:29 pm
brokencrescendo) wrote in zenderael_rl2012-06-23 09:29 pm
Entry tags:
[Nadir/Ezra/Rhys] -- Useful
Who: Nadir, Ezra, and Rhys
When: Tuesday, March 22
Where: Mom and Dad Amos residence
Before/After: After this email
Warnings: Violence, monster fightin', language
In which who you gonna call
crocobear busters
Ezra felt a little bad to bring Ali all the way out here with the three of them in tow, only to ask her to stay inside. Not that it was all the way out for her, but picking the three of them up had certainly been out of the way in the first place. Nadir had taken the back seat with Rhys so Ezra could navigate at the front with Alison, trying not to look especially nervous. Nadir, on the other hand (who'd given her a cordial and familiar greeting upon getting into the car), was the happiest Ezra had ever seen him. Not that the man was in the habit of smiling much or anything, but it had been in the way he'd strapped his belt and sword on, foregoing the majority of his equipment except his gloves, which he'd pulled on and adjusted with a look of immense satisfaction.
In a way, Ezra was glad Nadir could feel useful. In another, he felt dread at the idea that Nadir would be useful.
"What on earth is going on?" he could hear his mother asking Alison in that sigh of a voice she had, the door closing shut quietly. Ezra could hear the telltale noises in the back yard by the old apple tree before he saw the creature around the side of the house. It was a little dim out now, the sun was setting quickly by this point. Nadir beside him, Rhys close by. But what was Rhys supposed to do? Only Nadir had a sword, nevermind just about anything else. But he didn't ask many questions of Nadir, not those kinds.
"It's alone, she said?"
"First they've seen. But pets have been going missing, so it could be more than just this guy."
"They must be taking their time crossing over." Nadir didn't sound displeased. Ezra looked back to Rhys. He hadn't been able to bring himself to ask him any questions, either. "Amos, you're just going to watch. Elena, stay with me, but not too closely. You're backup this time around." The words breached no disagreement. Ezra gave Rhys A Look without saying anything.
Rhys was sharing Ezra's mixed emotions, but instead of directing them at Nadir, they were at himself. Jordan told him that if the time came, he could do something, and while being able to do something gave him a tug of hope, the fact that there was something to do was a problem. Part of him was also glad Nadir was willing to let him come along. Rhys hoped that meant he hadn't proved himself a disappointment.
Not being able to speak, Rhys was left out of conversation, giving him time to brace himself and force his breathing to calm. With Nadir's order, he nodded, no rebellion in his eyes. All Rhys had experience with up until now were rioters who were just as clumsy as he was. This was a different creature all together, and Rhys wasn't exactly well equipped. Bandages were wrapped around his hands under his gloves, and he had no armor to speak of. He'd just have to rough it and try not to endanger anyone else in the process.
He met Ezra's look, offering a sheepish half grin and a shrug of his shoulders. It hadn't occurred to him until that moment that others would be watching. Nothing for it now.
"Yessir," was all Ezra said. Rhys couldn't be faring that much better, he considered, it'd only been a few days since they'd started sword practice. Ezra shrugged in his hoodie. Nadir was a strict teacher, if the bruises all up his arms and sides said anything. But it was the least of his concerns these days. It wasn't like the weather allowed for bare arms or legs anyway.
Nadir glanced to the house. Ezra had made brief mention of not knowing how his family would react. That was fair enough. He'd asked Alison to try and occupy his parents' attention somehow. Nadir still felt ridiculous having to hide what was so natural to him, but it was getting easier to deal with now. Blinds shut, he trusted that was the best they would get. Without a word, a sudden crackling noise heralded the purple lightning that started dancing along the edge of his blade. He could see traces of the magic in the air, nothing as spectacular as a mage or cleric could summon, but it was enough to satisfy him for now. If he was lucky- he had to hope he would be lucky, with so much of his gear missing- that the initial attack would stun the beast. It was chomping its way through the branches of the tree to get at the apples, and by the looks of it something else had fallen prey to it as well.
They had a nasty charge. Considering they didn't have a healer, Nadir approached more carefully than he normally would have, but at the threshold on what the other two might have realized would be the aggro radius, he rushed in himself and slashed its hindquarters, an electric shock running through the whole of the animal. It let out a brief cry, but was clearly paralyzed. Seven seconds until it wore off.
Even knowing it was a beast, it wasn't easy for Rhys. He winced in sympathy as the beast took the hit. It didn't know why it was here, or how, and was doing its best to survive. That survival was, unfortunately, a danger to everyone else. The idea of monsters had never entered his mind before. They were wild animals that posed an actual danger to humans. He couldn't throw it into a river somewhere and hope things turned out for the best.
But battle wasn't the place to think about that. He recognized the stun when he saw it, for the first time truly appreciating the attention to detail in Zenderael's graphical feedback. If he remembered the game correctly, he had only seconds of an opportunity to launch a safe attack.
Sparing none of the time he had, Rhys sped forward in a berserker's charge. The speed was unnatural, but to the untrained eye, would seem within the realm of plausibility. He swung his fist upward to knock the crocobear's jaw up, exposing the less protected belly and striking it with his opposite fist, holding nothing back. He didn't have the time to see what had happened, leaping back to gain safe distance before the stun wore off.
But the force of the the first blow had already lifted the tank of a crocobear off its feet, and with the second, it traveled its own body length before smashing back into the ground, crushing all plausible deniability with it.
"What the fuck," could be heard from the background over the noise of the beast's outraged baying and the inevitable crash of its body hitting the ground. Oh, and the snap of the tree its thrashing tail knocked over as it wiggled on its plated back.
Ezra stared from his spot at the side of the house. Rhys had no sword. Rhys had just launched a creature nearly the size of a minivan with his bare (gloved) hands. That didn't come with sword practice, and this wasn't something you jut hid from people.
Nadir wasted no time in moving in. The tail presented a problem, but he dodged it, stepping on it and jumping up onto its belly. Before it could flip itself over, he drove the sparking blade into the soft underbelly, a crackling vortex forming at the hilt of the sword. With a vicious twist, it charged in through the blade, electrocuting the beast until it lay still.
He took the blade out and snapped it to the side, taking a cloth from the side of his scabbard and drawing the blade along it before resheathing it.
"Good. They're easiest dealt with if you can get to their stomach. How do you feel?" he asked Rhys, ignoring the open blinds and the slackjawed Ezra to the side.
Rhys had heard Ezra, but he didn't have time to worry about it. He jolted to action with the snap, catching the tree a moment before it hit the ground, then let it drop more gently the rest of the way. With Nadir's final strike, Rhys flinched, frowning as he watched the beast struggle until it was no longer moving. Maybe they could use it for something, though with Rhys didn't even so much want to look at meat anymore himself. (Were crocobears even edible...?)
He shook himself off when Nadir turned, straightening with the question. Rhys looked over his hands, pulling off a glove with his teeth and unrolling a bandage. His knuckles were scuffed and bloody from the impact, but nothing worth worrying about. Rhys has never been able to channel his strength like that before. He'd been afraid to. That may not have been what Nadir meant, though. The feeling of combat, the end of it aside, had felt good. Satisfying. Without his whiteboard, all he could do was look up at Nadir with unmasked awe. It lasted a moment before Rhys noticed the blinds.
He sighed and slumped forward, hands on his knees, smiling in spite of himself. Them too, huh?
"Shit," Ezra muttered, his voice cracking a little as he came forward. The smell of burnt fur was enough to choke a horse."Shit, shit, shit." He turned his head to see his parents staring out the window, Alison in tow. He swallowed and looked away, coming over to join the two of them by the dead crocobear, hands stuffed in his pockets and shoulders hunched.
"It wasn't a long enough battle to trigger your fury," Nadir was saying as Ezra came up, unconcerned with the open blind, the stinking corpse, the door from the house next door opening up, which caused Ezra to turn his head in that direction and groan.
"We'll talk about this in a minute," he said, scowling and changing his course of direction towards the middle-aged woman in hair rollers coming over to peek over the fence. "Mrs. Rhodes, hi..."
Nadir watched him walk off, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. "We can't hide things like this even if we try. If they're coming, there's nothing we can do to stop it. We'll just have to deal with it." He watched Ezra lean on the fence, taking up some idle chatter with the woman. "It'll give you more practice, though. For what, I don't know. We might just be on the road to this becoming the new norm."
Ezra came over, the woman still staring at the body and the three of them suspiciously, but without anything more being said. "I dunno if the body'll disappear or what. If you need to head back, Rhys, I'm sure Ali will give you a lift. Nadir an' I can stay here the night." And spend most of it trying to find some explanation for his parents. But with all that said, he couldn't quite look at Rhys.
Nadir smacked him in the shoulder, causing Ezra to nearly topple forward, catching himself and having to right his glasses on his face. "He'll stay. He's got some explaining to do."
The idea of fury still worried Rhys. He had experienced it before once or twice, but after what he had done to that crocobear without it, he wondered what it would mean in the future. He frowned, but nodded as Nadir spoke, turning to look at him to show he was still listening. Rhys wanted to be able to control his inevitable fury, but he had an inkling that ran counter-intuitive to how fury worked and to what it's advantages could be.
He looked to the corpse, thoughtful as he rebandaged and gloved his hand. Nadir was right. This could become normal. And Jordan walked home from work so late in the evenings. How many Zenderael monsters were considered nocturnal predators?
Leaving was what Rhys wanted to do, and if he could speak he would have jumped on the offer, thanked Ezra and Nadir, and prepared for an awkward car ride with Alison. Better yet, he'd walk home. Then Nadir stepped in and Rhys winced, but smiled and gave a weak nod.
He couldn't argue with that. Rhys pulled out his phone to send Ezra a text.
I can help move the body.
It was the least he could offer to do, if he was going to stay a while longer.
Nadir turned his head slighly in order to give Rhys A Look. (It really was so obvious sometimes that Nadir was Ezra's character.) He didn't say anything to Rhys' reluctance, though. Unfortunate, but it was part of Rhys' responsibility. For every freedom strength like his gave, it would take others away to compensate.
"Amos, your parents. Can they be trusted?"
Ezra's attention snapped back to Nadir, curious, glancing back to the body. Trusted. So if he told them some bizarre outlandish story detailing the video game he'd been playing since he was a teenager was becoming real, would they believe him and back him up or consider him a lunatic and explain away what they'd seen?
"...yeah," he said finally, hoping it'd be true, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah. It'll be fine. I think it'll be fine." He looked at Rhys this time, rolling and then rubbing at his shoulder where Nadir had smacked him. The jingle of his cellphone went off and he dug his phone out of his pocket, flipping it open. He hesitated a moment before flipping it shut again. "Yeah. I think we're gonna need some help. That thing's fuckin' huge. So," he said suddenly, on the verge of interrupting himself before Nadir could chime in again, "so lemme get this straight, 'cause that was some crazy shit right there. So. So." Now, how did he want to word this... he turned on Nadir suddenly. "How long have you fuckin' known he was a fuckin' berserker? Wait, no, it's more than that, isn't it? Mystery solved, right?? Ah Jesus, you guys," he said, taking his glasses off to rub at an eye socket.
Nadir watched him, silent. He gave Ezra another clap on the shoulder. "Like I said. We can trust your parents, right?"
Rhys winced, running his fingers through his hair. His smile at Ezra was a sheepish one, free of protest and denial. He was thankful Ezra, at least, had caught on. That meant there was less to explain. Nadir's Look was still burned in Rhys' mind, however, and he knew he couldn't leave anything to interpretation. His expression fell again as he typed on his phone.
Yeah. The Ahura wasn't a cosplayer.
Ezra nodded weakly, flipping his phone open again. He read the message once, twice, then took a breath in and held it. Letting it out, he looked back to Rhys with something like apology, or sympathy. "Yeah, sounds like he wasn't."
Of course, that meant- he suppressed the urge to groan aloud again. They wouldn't be finding the Ahura anytime soon in-game then, were they.
"All right. Okay. Okay, so." Ugh, just spit it out, Ezra. "Inside. Let's just go inside for now. We can. Do something about the body. And the tree." He took Nadir and Rhys by the arm and shoved them ahead of him. Amused, Nadir let himself get pushed and walked around the side to the front again. His mother was probably standing on the front step, just waiting for them to appear around the side, arms folded with her eyebrows drawn in and his father adjusting his glasses in a nervous fashion. She was probably already thinking of what kind of food to pull out of the fridge for them. At least they wouldn't go home hungry.
Ezra walked a little behind Rhys, then gave a little jump to catch up. He took his turn to clap Rhys on the shoulder.
"That was pretty sweet, though."
Rhys managed a small smile with Ezra's tone. He appreciated the sentiment, at least, but it faded into a frown, which in turn shifted to surprise. Wait. Inside? He gave a small flail to keep his balance as he was yanked and shoved along, having no choice but to facilitate the motions as he was shuffled into the Amos household.
Responsibility. Why was it this seemed the hardest part of that?
Rhys glanced back at Ezra, surprised, then looked back ahead, cheeks flushed at the praise. It had felt pretty sweet, too. He probably wasn't supposed to think that.
When: Tuesday, March 22
Where: Mom and Dad Amos residence
Before/After: After this email
Warnings: Violence, monster fightin', language
In which who you gonna call
crocobear busters
Ezra felt a little bad to bring Ali all the way out here with the three of them in tow, only to ask her to stay inside. Not that it was all the way out for her, but picking the three of them up had certainly been out of the way in the first place. Nadir had taken the back seat with Rhys so Ezra could navigate at the front with Alison, trying not to look especially nervous. Nadir, on the other hand (who'd given her a cordial and familiar greeting upon getting into the car), was the happiest Ezra had ever seen him. Not that the man was in the habit of smiling much or anything, but it had been in the way he'd strapped his belt and sword on, foregoing the majority of his equipment except his gloves, which he'd pulled on and adjusted with a look of immense satisfaction.
In a way, Ezra was glad Nadir could feel useful. In another, he felt dread at the idea that Nadir would be useful.
"What on earth is going on?" he could hear his mother asking Alison in that sigh of a voice she had, the door closing shut quietly. Ezra could hear the telltale noises in the back yard by the old apple tree before he saw the creature around the side of the house. It was a little dim out now, the sun was setting quickly by this point. Nadir beside him, Rhys close by. But what was Rhys supposed to do? Only Nadir had a sword, nevermind just about anything else. But he didn't ask many questions of Nadir, not those kinds.
"It's alone, she said?"
"First they've seen. But pets have been going missing, so it could be more than just this guy."
"They must be taking their time crossing over." Nadir didn't sound displeased. Ezra looked back to Rhys. He hadn't been able to bring himself to ask him any questions, either. "Amos, you're just going to watch. Elena, stay with me, but not too closely. You're backup this time around." The words breached no disagreement. Ezra gave Rhys A Look without saying anything.
Rhys was sharing Ezra's mixed emotions, but instead of directing them at Nadir, they were at himself. Jordan told him that if the time came, he could do something, and while being able to do something gave him a tug of hope, the fact that there was something to do was a problem. Part of him was also glad Nadir was willing to let him come along. Rhys hoped that meant he hadn't proved himself a disappointment.
Not being able to speak, Rhys was left out of conversation, giving him time to brace himself and force his breathing to calm. With Nadir's order, he nodded, no rebellion in his eyes. All Rhys had experience with up until now were rioters who were just as clumsy as he was. This was a different creature all together, and Rhys wasn't exactly well equipped. Bandages were wrapped around his hands under his gloves, and he had no armor to speak of. He'd just have to rough it and try not to endanger anyone else in the process.
He met Ezra's look, offering a sheepish half grin and a shrug of his shoulders. It hadn't occurred to him until that moment that others would be watching. Nothing for it now.
"Yessir," was all Ezra said. Rhys couldn't be faring that much better, he considered, it'd only been a few days since they'd started sword practice. Ezra shrugged in his hoodie. Nadir was a strict teacher, if the bruises all up his arms and sides said anything. But it was the least of his concerns these days. It wasn't like the weather allowed for bare arms or legs anyway.
Nadir glanced to the house. Ezra had made brief mention of not knowing how his family would react. That was fair enough. He'd asked Alison to try and occupy his parents' attention somehow. Nadir still felt ridiculous having to hide what was so natural to him, but it was getting easier to deal with now. Blinds shut, he trusted that was the best they would get. Without a word, a sudden crackling noise heralded the purple lightning that started dancing along the edge of his blade. He could see traces of the magic in the air, nothing as spectacular as a mage or cleric could summon, but it was enough to satisfy him for now. If he was lucky- he had to hope he would be lucky, with so much of his gear missing- that the initial attack would stun the beast. It was chomping its way through the branches of the tree to get at the apples, and by the looks of it something else had fallen prey to it as well.
They had a nasty charge. Considering they didn't have a healer, Nadir approached more carefully than he normally would have, but at the threshold on what the other two might have realized would be the aggro radius, he rushed in himself and slashed its hindquarters, an electric shock running through the whole of the animal. It let out a brief cry, but was clearly paralyzed. Seven seconds until it wore off.
Even knowing it was a beast, it wasn't easy for Rhys. He winced in sympathy as the beast took the hit. It didn't know why it was here, or how, and was doing its best to survive. That survival was, unfortunately, a danger to everyone else. The idea of monsters had never entered his mind before. They were wild animals that posed an actual danger to humans. He couldn't throw it into a river somewhere and hope things turned out for the best.
But battle wasn't the place to think about that. He recognized the stun when he saw it, for the first time truly appreciating the attention to detail in Zenderael's graphical feedback. If he remembered the game correctly, he had only seconds of an opportunity to launch a safe attack.
Sparing none of the time he had, Rhys sped forward in a berserker's charge. The speed was unnatural, but to the untrained eye, would seem within the realm of plausibility. He swung his fist upward to knock the crocobear's jaw up, exposing the less protected belly and striking it with his opposite fist, holding nothing back. He didn't have the time to see what had happened, leaping back to gain safe distance before the stun wore off.
But the force of the the first blow had already lifted the tank of a crocobear off its feet, and with the second, it traveled its own body length before smashing back into the ground, crushing all plausible deniability with it.
"What the fuck," could be heard from the background over the noise of the beast's outraged baying and the inevitable crash of its body hitting the ground. Oh, and the snap of the tree its thrashing tail knocked over as it wiggled on its plated back.
Ezra stared from his spot at the side of the house. Rhys had no sword. Rhys had just launched a creature nearly the size of a minivan with his bare (gloved) hands. That didn't come with sword practice, and this wasn't something you jut hid from people.
Nadir wasted no time in moving in. The tail presented a problem, but he dodged it, stepping on it and jumping up onto its belly. Before it could flip itself over, he drove the sparking blade into the soft underbelly, a crackling vortex forming at the hilt of the sword. With a vicious twist, it charged in through the blade, electrocuting the beast until it lay still.
He took the blade out and snapped it to the side, taking a cloth from the side of his scabbard and drawing the blade along it before resheathing it.
"Good. They're easiest dealt with if you can get to their stomach. How do you feel?" he asked Rhys, ignoring the open blinds and the slackjawed Ezra to the side.
Rhys had heard Ezra, but he didn't have time to worry about it. He jolted to action with the snap, catching the tree a moment before it hit the ground, then let it drop more gently the rest of the way. With Nadir's final strike, Rhys flinched, frowning as he watched the beast struggle until it was no longer moving. Maybe they could use it for something, though with Rhys didn't even so much want to look at meat anymore himself. (Were crocobears even edible...?)
He shook himself off when Nadir turned, straightening with the question. Rhys looked over his hands, pulling off a glove with his teeth and unrolling a bandage. His knuckles were scuffed and bloody from the impact, but nothing worth worrying about. Rhys has never been able to channel his strength like that before. He'd been afraid to. That may not have been what Nadir meant, though. The feeling of combat, the end of it aside, had felt good. Satisfying. Without his whiteboard, all he could do was look up at Nadir with unmasked awe. It lasted a moment before Rhys noticed the blinds.
He sighed and slumped forward, hands on his knees, smiling in spite of himself. Them too, huh?
"Shit," Ezra muttered, his voice cracking a little as he came forward. The smell of burnt fur was enough to choke a horse."Shit, shit, shit." He turned his head to see his parents staring out the window, Alison in tow. He swallowed and looked away, coming over to join the two of them by the dead crocobear, hands stuffed in his pockets and shoulders hunched.
"It wasn't a long enough battle to trigger your fury," Nadir was saying as Ezra came up, unconcerned with the open blind, the stinking corpse, the door from the house next door opening up, which caused Ezra to turn his head in that direction and groan.
"We'll talk about this in a minute," he said, scowling and changing his course of direction towards the middle-aged woman in hair rollers coming over to peek over the fence. "Mrs. Rhodes, hi..."
Nadir watched him walk off, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. "We can't hide things like this even if we try. If they're coming, there's nothing we can do to stop it. We'll just have to deal with it." He watched Ezra lean on the fence, taking up some idle chatter with the woman. "It'll give you more practice, though. For what, I don't know. We might just be on the road to this becoming the new norm."
Ezra came over, the woman still staring at the body and the three of them suspiciously, but without anything more being said. "I dunno if the body'll disappear or what. If you need to head back, Rhys, I'm sure Ali will give you a lift. Nadir an' I can stay here the night." And spend most of it trying to find some explanation for his parents. But with all that said, he couldn't quite look at Rhys.
Nadir smacked him in the shoulder, causing Ezra to nearly topple forward, catching himself and having to right his glasses on his face. "He'll stay. He's got some explaining to do."
The idea of fury still worried Rhys. He had experienced it before once or twice, but after what he had done to that crocobear without it, he wondered what it would mean in the future. He frowned, but nodded as Nadir spoke, turning to look at him to show he was still listening. Rhys wanted to be able to control his inevitable fury, but he had an inkling that ran counter-intuitive to how fury worked and to what it's advantages could be.
He looked to the corpse, thoughtful as he rebandaged and gloved his hand. Nadir was right. This could become normal. And Jordan walked home from work so late in the evenings. How many Zenderael monsters were considered nocturnal predators?
Leaving was what Rhys wanted to do, and if he could speak he would have jumped on the offer, thanked Ezra and Nadir, and prepared for an awkward car ride with Alison. Better yet, he'd walk home. Then Nadir stepped in and Rhys winced, but smiled and gave a weak nod.
He couldn't argue with that. Rhys pulled out his phone to send Ezra a text.
I can help move the body.
It was the least he could offer to do, if he was going to stay a while longer.
Nadir turned his head slighly in order to give Rhys A Look. (It really was so obvious sometimes that Nadir was Ezra's character.) He didn't say anything to Rhys' reluctance, though. Unfortunate, but it was part of Rhys' responsibility. For every freedom strength like his gave, it would take others away to compensate.
"Amos, your parents. Can they be trusted?"
Ezra's attention snapped back to Nadir, curious, glancing back to the body. Trusted. So if he told them some bizarre outlandish story detailing the video game he'd been playing since he was a teenager was becoming real, would they believe him and back him up or consider him a lunatic and explain away what they'd seen?
"...yeah," he said finally, hoping it'd be true, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah. It'll be fine. I think it'll be fine." He looked at Rhys this time, rolling and then rubbing at his shoulder where Nadir had smacked him. The jingle of his cellphone went off and he dug his phone out of his pocket, flipping it open. He hesitated a moment before flipping it shut again. "Yeah. I think we're gonna need some help. That thing's fuckin' huge. So," he said suddenly, on the verge of interrupting himself before Nadir could chime in again, "so lemme get this straight, 'cause that was some crazy shit right there. So. So." Now, how did he want to word this... he turned on Nadir suddenly. "How long have you fuckin' known he was a fuckin' berserker? Wait, no, it's more than that, isn't it? Mystery solved, right?? Ah Jesus, you guys," he said, taking his glasses off to rub at an eye socket.
Nadir watched him, silent. He gave Ezra another clap on the shoulder. "Like I said. We can trust your parents, right?"
Rhys winced, running his fingers through his hair. His smile at Ezra was a sheepish one, free of protest and denial. He was thankful Ezra, at least, had caught on. That meant there was less to explain. Nadir's Look was still burned in Rhys' mind, however, and he knew he couldn't leave anything to interpretation. His expression fell again as he typed on his phone.
Yeah. The Ahura wasn't a cosplayer.
Ezra nodded weakly, flipping his phone open again. He read the message once, twice, then took a breath in and held it. Letting it out, he looked back to Rhys with something like apology, or sympathy. "Yeah, sounds like he wasn't."
Of course, that meant- he suppressed the urge to groan aloud again. They wouldn't be finding the Ahura anytime soon in-game then, were they.
"All right. Okay. Okay, so." Ugh, just spit it out, Ezra. "Inside. Let's just go inside for now. We can. Do something about the body. And the tree." He took Nadir and Rhys by the arm and shoved them ahead of him. Amused, Nadir let himself get pushed and walked around the side to the front again. His mother was probably standing on the front step, just waiting for them to appear around the side, arms folded with her eyebrows drawn in and his father adjusting his glasses in a nervous fashion. She was probably already thinking of what kind of food to pull out of the fridge for them. At least they wouldn't go home hungry.
Ezra walked a little behind Rhys, then gave a little jump to catch up. He took his turn to clap Rhys on the shoulder.
"That was pretty sweet, though."
Rhys managed a small smile with Ezra's tone. He appreciated the sentiment, at least, but it faded into a frown, which in turn shifted to surprise. Wait. Inside? He gave a small flail to keep his balance as he was yanked and shoved along, having no choice but to facilitate the motions as he was shuffled into the Amos household.
Responsibility. Why was it this seemed the hardest part of that?
Rhys glanced back at Ezra, surprised, then looked back ahead, cheeks flushed at the praise. It had felt pretty sweet, too. He probably wasn't supposed to think that.