Issue 1 Downtime

After e-mailing Trev that she was ready to have dinner, Gemma was waiting in the cafeteria with his book under one of her arms. She hadn't gone through the line yet, waiting instead for him to show up.

Trev showed up right on time, a big smile on his face as he saw her.

"Hi Gemma!"

"Hi, Trev," Gemma said. "Here's your book back," she offered the book to him.

"Thanks," he smiled, tucking it under his arm and grabbing a tray, offering it to Gemma.

"How have you been?"

"Been good. Adjusting to a different schedule," she said, accepting the tray. "You?"

"Trying to get back into the groove of classes. I did very little productive over the summer, so keeping a schedule is kind of challenging," he chuckled.

"Summers are for non-productive things," Gemma said. "That's why they were invented."

"A girl after my own heart," he grinned. "Did you have a chance to look at the book? Are you ready to run away screaming?"

"I did and no. I like the Sorcerer."

"Weaving magic because of the draconic blood flowing in your veins? Seems only appropriate," he smiled.

Maybe I should reconsider the dragon villain...

"That is sort of what appealed to me," Gemma agreed as she loaded down her tray. "And I liked that there are good dragons and bad dragons. It was nice to see some even-ness there for a change."

Okay...maybe not. Glad she picked up on that

"Yeah definitely. D&D's not the kind of game you want to think especially hard about the morality of things in game, otherwise it gets hard to kill the evil rampaging orc horde when you realize they have kids and families too," he chuckled. "I try to keep things somewhat light at the table though, and more often than not you're plundering an ancient tomb and fighting mindless undead or evil priests or hungry beasts anyway. Mostly, I just try to keep people at the table happy, so if there's something you want to see more or less of we can totally do it."

"I don't really want to rock the boat too much," Gemma said quietly. "I'm just happy to get involved in something."

"Not rocking the boat at all," he reassured her, finishing up loading his tray.

"Did any of the races look more interesting to you than another? Dragonborn aren't especially common in the part of the world where the game is now, but we can totally make something work."

"Dwarf or human," she said. "I realize dwarf isn't optimal, but there's something that appeals to me."

"Optimal schmoptimal. I hate power-gaming. Play what's fun and flavorful to you," he smiled.

"Dwarf Sorcerer, or Sorceress as it were, then," she said, pulling out a couple of folded sets of papers and passing him one as they sat down. The sheet was a filled out character sheet.

Trev smiled as he looked over the sheet. "Gemma, you've got this filled out better and more accurately than some of the people currently playing in my group and you've had this book for less than a week."

He set the sheet down gingerly on the table to avoid putting it in anything messy, pulled out his phone and took a few pictures of the sheet before folding it back up and passing it to Gemma.

"This looks awesome, and I like some of the little details you added. We can totally work something out to get you into the game. The characters are sort of sell-swords in a huge capital city of a continent-spanning empire, but as of yet they've barely left the city walls."

"That sounds good. Just let me know the when and where and I'll be there." She smiled at him and something ignited deep in her eyes.

Trev stared deep into her eyes like a moth drawn to the flame, a stupid open-mouthed grin on his face.

"My god you have gorgeous eyes..." he said vacantly.

Trev wasn't good at subtlety.

"Oh, I do, do I?" The voice was somehow different. More... self-assured?

"Yes..." He said trailing off, still lost in her eyes.

"Then we should have a talk, you and I," she said, moving around the table to sit next to him.

"I...we should?" he asked his attention finally pulled from her eyes. He smiled nervously.

"Yes, we should. You're cute and sweet and I would hate for something to happen to you. But if you hurt her, something just might happen to you. Am I clear?" She smiled at him and her canines were perhaps a bit more fang-like than they would normally be.

Trev's eyes widened a bit, not unlike a wounded antelope staring at a lion about to devour it.

"I...no! I I wouldn't do anything like that."

"Good to know. Have a nice dinner." Gemma's hand flew to her mouth, "Oh god, I'm so sorry."

Trev's eyes were still just as wide as they had been when the other half was talking. "Uh...I...hi..."

"I... um..." She was looking everywhere but Trev. "I should have warned you."

"So...you've really, really got two halves huh?" he said finally looking like he was breathing.

She nodded, "I didn't know she'd snag control of me like that. Usually she only does that when I'm shifted."

"You...your eyes looked...they had a bit of a spark in them. And you had...just a different way of speaking."

Trev sighed relieved. "It's fine. I'm...kinda used to it. My best friend is a shifter. But her...other side doesn't really talk."

"She's... a bitch. But she likes to think she looks after me. And she does, but she had no business threatening you." The last statement was almost as much to herself as it was to Trev.

"So...are you like...aware of what she says and just sort of..watching?"

"Yeah. And she's aware of what I say. Really, we're the same person, at least that's what the doctors say. We... I... just think in two different ways."

"I can tell," he smiled nervously. "So...I...uh...I'm cute?"

Gemma's face blushed to match her hair, "Yeah... It's something we agree on."

Trev grinned bashfully "well so are you. Especially when you blush like that."

Gemma reddened a little more. "Dinner... yeah... food... good."

Trev grinned, looking at their forgotten food. "Yeah the food is pretty good here."

He reached across the table and slid her tray to her new seat next to him, and then took a bite of his own dinner.

"Thanks for coming to dinner with me."