2.4 Low Negotiation Rolls

In the office or at home, day or night, rain or shine... Lynx has his eye on the prize, and the prize is becoming studio head. He puts in long hours at home, and on some level his enjoys his work, but more often than not it's perfectionism that keeps him going.

His lofty dream of becoming technical director? Well, he hasn't made it, yet, but now it's looking more like an eventual certainty than a hopeful possibility. So he has set his sights on bigger and better things.

Lynx's workaholic trait means Mariposa is often on her own when she's rather not be.

Today, she visits a thrift store.

What wonder.

I don't see a cashier. I can only conclude that Mariposa broke into this building.

She wanders the town a little more and finds her high school nemesis, Astral, just sitting there in the park!

The nerve!

"I'm willing to forgive your fashion crimes," Mariposa explains, "but could you convince your brother to pop the question?"

"The question?" Astral plays dumb.

"You know! Ask him when he's going to propose to me!"

Astral sneers. "What makes you think I want you as an in-law?"

"I don't know? The prestige? I'm a doctor!"

"Oh, really? Where'd you get your degree?"

"Your ass!" Mariposa yells.

A moment later, Lenny Berge here begins to clutch his stomach and scream in pain.

Vikki Thompson, lady with pink hair bow, panics. "Is there a doctor around?!"

Hell yeah there's a doctor around! Allegedly!

I really wish I'd have gotten a screenshot of what happened next. Mariposa kicked this dude in the shin and then pronounced him better.

Medical career track is weirder than I remember it.

After enough complaining, Lynx promises Mariposa he'll take a day off. They go to one of the public pools.

"Lynx! Stop staring at that screen and stare at ME! I'm NAKED!"

"You're always naked!" he snaps, without looking away from his laptop.

"Well now it's skinny dipping, so it's more exciting!"

"Whatever!"

"You promised me you would take a mental health day and relax..."

With much coaxing, Lynx climbs into the hot tub with Mariposa.

Eventually she gets them kicked out of the venue, but weirdly, it's not for skinny dipping... or for their public woohoo...

...it's for violently assaulting a local teenager for no reason.

Hey look, it's Pippy. Still doing that art thing.

The assaulting-a-teenager incident makes D&D a little awkward that week. Erik Beaker, the victim, happens to be Valter's wife's cousin.

"Well I'm not going to hit YOU," Mariposa says blithely. "You don't have a stupid face."

Brooke seems uncomfortable as well. "I didn't think violent offenders could just walk free after posting bail."

"Happens all the time," Mariposa says cheerily.

"And you're not worried about your court date?"

"I just won't show up."

"She'll probably end up paying a fine and doing community service or something," Lynx says.

"Erik is the mayor's son," Brooke points out. "So Mari could be facing worse than that..."

"Mayor Beaker never struck me as someone who would wield his power that way," Valter says.

"Can you all just shut up?" Lynx fumes. "I'm trying to introduce my new character."

Valter nods. "Right. Name, race and alignment?"

"Chicken Fries. High elf. Lawful chaotic."

"Lawful Chaotic isn't an alignment," Brooke sighs.

"I'm hung up on Chicken Fries being a name for a high elf," Valter says slowly.

"Or for anyone," Brooke agrees.

"How dare you insult C.F.'s culture? He was found by goblins as an elfling and raised as a goblin. They named him."

Valter consults his books. "Which versions of goblins were we going with in this campaign...?"

"Brooke, remember when you wouldn't date Lynx in high school because he was a nerd who played too many video games?" Mariposa asks, out of nowhere.

Three pairs of eyes turn to her in confusion.

"I remember," Mariposa says.

"Alright, well, I guess Chicken Fries can be encountered during the prison raid," Valter says.

Brooke turns her attention back to Valter. "Wrongfully imprisoned, because he's lawful? Or rightfully imprisoned, because he's chaotic?"

"He doesn't know he's chaotic. He suffers from early onset dementia, at only 702 years old," Lynx clarifies.

"So was Mari trying to say I'm just as addicted to games now as you were as a teen, or what?" Brooke can't get the comment out of her head, even after the RPG session ends and the console gaming session begins.

"Don't speak her name or she'll appear," Lynx warns.

"I don't think I'm addicted to the point of having no social life. Which was you in high school, you have to admit! How many times did you turn down my invitations to hang out, just do you could raid?" She sighs. "Sorry. That just hit a weird nerve. I don't know."

"That's Mari's job. Making it weird." Lynx dismisses the situation.

Brooke laughs anyway. "You're funny."

Despite all the talk of quitting her job to focus on becoming a best-selling author, Mariposa continues to go to work. Here's a picture of her at work.

"I was promoted to paramedic today," she tells Valter.

"Wow! Congratulations!" he responds.

Though he's pretty sure this is merely one of Mariposa's many delusions.

"I feel like Valter and Brooke live here, sometimes," Mariposa complains.

"I feel like you live here sometimes," Lynx says.

"My clothes are here. The bed I sleep in is here. The food I buy, I bring to this house, this fridge. Of course I live here."

"A shockingly coherent argument, but no. Only my name is on the property."

She blinks. "Are you afraid I'll kill you to get your house?"

"No, I'm worried you're going to think our relationship is more than casual."

Mariposa scowls over her shoulder at him, but he doesn't notice, or care, too absorbed in his game.

"Anyway, Valter and Brooke don't live here. They live at work! They party here."

"Yes. Adventure party." Mariposa's scowl turns into a smile as she thinks about her birdfolk necromancer character.

Chika-Dee-Dee-Dee's low negotiation rolls led directly to the death of Lynx's prior character, a Gnome thief named Something-or-Other.

Things remained "normal" for a short time after that. And then, all of a sudden, nothing was normal.

Mariposa was at the Balloon Festival, alone, eating chili cheese fries, when two very important life-altering events occurred.

First, she began to suspect she was pregnant.

She looked down, and bam, she was in maternity clothes. Where did those come from?

Probably lizards.

Second, her boyfriend was at that very moment taking the opportunity to woohoo with another woman.

There was some lead-up, obviously. Mariposa would never be privy to the exacting details.

She wouldn't know (though she would suspect) that Brooke, while complaining endlessly about her husband Chen, was starting to see Lynx as a source of emotional support. Brooke had deliberately and consistently elected to spend more time with Lynx and less time with Chen.

Mariposa wouldn't know that Chen showed up at the door one day, that day, absolutely livid, demanding to know why Brooke lied about where she was all the time.

She wouldn't know that a physical fight broke out, or that the police were called.

She wouldn't know that Chen spent the afternoon in jail while his wife spent it being intimately comforted by his newfound nemesis.

Or that once Brooke had gotten that out of her system, she felt dirty about the whole thing. She felt soiled, and ashamed, and evil, and alone. She hadn't expected to feel alone.

Lynx told her she was better than Chen, told her she should just leave him, but she couldn't help but think all of this was her fault. She was a liar and a cheater, objectively, and she just needed to work harder on her marriage, she cried. How could she expect the best from Chen when she did not give him her best?

"How can you swallow that effing nonsense?" Lynx stared at her as she pulled her clothes back on. "Nothing excuses him..."

 "Nothing excuses me either..."

"Oh like this is really comparable? What's the matter with you? You're both wrong for each other and your main problem is you let a loveless marriage go on too long," Lynx complained. "Actually, the main problem is Chen is a TERRIBLE PERSON."

"I love him," Brooke defended. "And I don't... love you," she continued, as if just suddenly realizing. "I'm sorry, Lynx. I have to go."

Lynx cocked his head to the side, feeling stung, but not so much as he thought he would. "Okay," he shocked himself with how calm and automatic the words came to him. "See you tomorrow, and... good luck, with everything."

She gave him a look. She didn't want him to argue with her, but she was somehow offended that he didn't even try. She wondered, had she been misreading all his signals? Was woohoo all Lynx really wanted?

She left. Even though she had initiated, she felt used. She felt like a fool.

Lynx took a long shower and thought about things.

He felt kind of used. Kind of like a fool.

What he did not feel was guilt.

Even when he got out of the shower, and Mariposa was suddenly there in the bathroom, with big news, he didn't feel any guilt. He felt... annoyed.

"Please be okay with this?" Mariposa begs.

"I don't have a choice," Lynx grumbles.

"We can turn the D&D room into a nursery, then?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"You know if you had kept the old house, there would be room for a game room and a nursery."

"Oh, yes, the endless charms of the house my mother died in! Do tell me again!"

Mariposa flinches.

She doesn't bring up the old house again.





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Etc.: Title drop.