-A Few Minutes Beforehand...
"So basically, I can't go back to my room because I'm such a ginormous fucking idiot that I had to fall in love with the one person who is physically incapable of loving back.
So I need a place to stay because I invited her to live in my room when things were good, but now that they aren't, I don't want to put her out because I've realized that I don't like conflict very much, and I don't want to see her either because that'll probably make cry, and..."
As Helios listened to the nearly indecipherable speech filled with the woes of a late-blooming dragon, he started to get war flashbacks from when Yara was still a teenager.
His eyes glazed over. Her words changed to the sound of bombshells and cannon fire within his ears.
All the while, Thrudd just kept going without even being able to stop herself. Even she probably did not recognize what was happening to her.
"I was staying with Bashenga, but he kicked out after one night and said sothing about not being able to stand the sound of crying in my sleep...
Apparently, even the empty void that makes up his room can't get him far enough away from the sound of my crying, so.... Can I stay here with you, Great-Grandpa?"
Helios blinked hard and seed to snap out of his trauma-induced stupor. When he looked down, Thrudd was staring back at him with big, watery eyes.
The silhouette of her childlike appearance briefly passed over her. And Helios ceased to find anything else of any importance.
"…Of course, Thrudd. I believe Rhea still has your room here exactly as you left it."
Thrudd smiled for the first ti in three whole days.
Helios stepped aside to allow her into his domain, when suddenly a familiar figure dropped down from the ceiling.
"GOTCHA!"
Fiona wrapped onto Thrudd's neck like a rider would a chanical bull. Or a runaway dragon.
"F-Fiona?! Get off of !"
"No way!" Fiona tightened her grip even further and resisted all of Thrudd's attempts to shake her off. "You've been avoiding for three days, you big dummy! I'm sick of worrying about you!"
Thrudd finally paused and glanced up at her stowaway with a disbelieving look on her face.
"You an... You were actually worried about ..? Like for real?"
"Obviously." Fiona gave her a small headbutt. "I'm your best friend, dunderhead. It's in the job description."
Like that, all of the wheels ca flying off.
Thrudd collapsed on the ground again as another crying ss. This ti, Fiona ca prepared with a special rain jacket and was able to console Thrudd without her good clothes becoming soaked through.
"Fioonaaaa!!!"
"Shhh, it's okay, I'm here now. I got you, my little late bloor..."
Again, Helios had no idea what the hell was going on.
He didn't know how much of this was ant for his eyes, or even if any of it was ant for them at all.
Thrudd and Fiona did not acknowledge his presence, and he was a bit too embarrassed to remind them that he had still been here this entire ti.
So in the end, he went with what he considered to be the best option.
He silently closed the door between them and left the girls out in the hallway.
While it might've seed a bit negligent from the outside looking in, Helios was pretty confident that everything was going to work out.
Evidently, his great-granddaughter was in good hands.
-
After Thrudd finally stopped crying, the girls were sitting in the hallway in silence.
This ti, Fiona didn't really push Thrudd into opening up before she was ready, and they just sat there together with their backs against the wall.
Though it might've seed boring and a bit tedious, Fiona kept her mind occupied by thinking about how big the hallway was, and wondering if eating the food here was going to make her grow enough that this would seem normal.
"I think... I know what I have to do." Thrudd said after a long silence.
Fiona, who had almost forgotten that she was here, smiled. "Oh, yeah? What's that, doofus?"
Thrudd had no objections to her new nickna as she held her knees up to her chest.
"I have to run away..." She replied in a dark voice.
Fiona resisted the urge to hit her friend. Both because it would've been unproductive, and because it likely would have hurt her own hand in the long run.
"Gotta start sowhere fresh where nobody knows ... Be my own woman and stuff. Be surrounded by stuff that don't remind of her."
"..." Thrudd wasn't making it easy for Fiona to overlook hitting her.
"I'll co back in like ten, twenty years… I'll have a super great body, and maybe a husband or a wife, or both..! And I'll be super attractive, and she'll regret not falling in love with when she had the chan-"
*Smack!*
"Ow!"
Fiona finally couldn't resist and gave the Thrudd the smack on the cheek that she needed.
As she thought, it wasn't worth the trouble. The back of her hand ended up clipping Thrudd's horn, and now she was the one who was about to cry.
"W-What was that for? And look, now you're bleeding!" Thrudd pointed.
Fiona bandaged her hand in silence. She bit her lip to keep up her image as the cool, dignified friend and not ruin her reputation this early in a friendship.
"I-I'm fine. Barely hurts." She lied. "Anyway, I did it because you're not making sense. How would your family feel if you just spontaneously left ho because you don't know how to resolve things with a girl?"
"..." Thrudd slowly fell over while still curled up into a ball. Her morale was dipping even further. "...They'd probably laugh at ..."
Fiona wanted to laugh, even though she knew she shouldn't. "Don't be like that. Surely, your family mbers must've had so failed relationships before. They'll know what it's like."
Thrudd said nothing. She knew that was true for a couple of her mothers, and even her grandfather, Asmodeus, but nearly everyone else in her life had married the people they dated and were still together to this very day.
Especially her siblings.
When the red giantess fell silent again, Fiona recognized that she was falling into a bit of a downward slope.
In order not to see all of the progress she'd made completely slide down into the drain, Fiona decided that maybe it was best to do a little positive reinforcent.
"You know... maybe your idea isn't wholly without rit." Fiona suddenly said. "Maybe it might do you good to get out of the house for a bit and clear your head."
Thrudd's ears visibly perked up. "Really..?"
"Really, really." Fiona nodded as she helped her sit up. "You know, I haven't done much exploring since I got here. Are there any cool places you like to go hang out at?"
Thrudd smiled wryly as she scratched the back of her head. "You'd have to ask the twins or Nubby about stuff like that... I don't really go out as much as they do."
"Well, you must like to do sothing for fun." Fiona rolled her eyes. "You don't just stay ho and work out every day, do you?"
"..." Thrudd started sliding back down onto the floor.
"Christ."
Fiona helped her back up and held onto her this ti so that she wouldn't try to tumble back down when her spirits beca crushed.
"Really?? Nowhere at all?? That's unbelievable." She sighed.
Thrudd was only getting more embarrassed. "Well, my sister Mira and I used to like to travel back in ti a lot, but dad said we couldn't do that anymore after Courtney was born... and because Apophis gave a native Arican a chili cheese dog one ti."
Fiona was getting a headache just thinking about the potential quantum ramifications of doing such a thing, but she told herself that to the dragons, it was the sa as pulling a 'relatively' harmless prank.
"But, well..." Thrudd began. "I guess there is this one place..."
Fiona's ears perked up. "That's my girl, I knew you wouldn't let down. Where is it? Let's go right now!"
When Thrudd smiled uncomfortably, Fiona had the faintest inkling that getting to where she wanted would be very difficult.
- The Present...
Seras and Abaddon blinked away their surprise as they stared into the phone. Thrudd's apologetic face on the other line was plastered clear across the screen.
"Let make sure I have this right..." Abaddon rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You want to go to Asgard..?"
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