His blade... ripples, and is suddenly consumed by deep, black, pitchy darkness.

It’s an odd sort of darkness, no doubt about it. He can still see the blade itself perfectly well, every detail just so, even whilst it remains all insistently gloamed. It’s almost like he’s in a dark room, looking at a pale object, eyes perfectly adjusted - except for the fact that his eyes are still adjusted elsewise, and his surroundings aren’t so much as dim.

Cooper startles a bit at the sudden change in the edge of his field of view, but relaxes once he realizes it's not a glass monster.

The dagger doing that is weird and new. He turns it over a bit, then, out loud, "Uh. You awake?" he asks, because weird things happening with magic weapons usually seems to indicate changes in the magic. Like starting being sapient.

He can sense his environment and that means something, he gets the impression that he’s been able to do it before but that before he wasn’t a he, he’s always been taking in sensory information but it was meaningless, useless - vision, but not something which can see with it, hearing, but not something which can hear with it - maybe even thought, without any consciousness to listen in - only he can’t know, because he can’t remember, he must have some onboard memory because he has a set of available concepts and facts but he doesn’t have anything autobiographical - he mentally catalogues his resources and his environment, but he doesn’t know what he’s cataloguing them for because he doesn’t have any goals, not yet, not quite -

Think so. Hi.

"How much do you remember? I don't know if I need to start at, like, 'I'm a human' level of explanation or a 'hey do you have a name you want'..."

I have - basic concepts - I knew what a human was once you mentioned it - but I don’t really have any sensory memories, can’t distinguish between true and false concepts without added explanation. Maybe try something between those two?

"Hm. We're in a dunj right now. They're sort of pocket dimensions I think, that sometimes connect to the main world and start spewing monsters everywhere. Monsters are aggressive, and attack places, and the dunj seems to respawn them. It's possible to close a dunj from the portal stone, and when you do that everyone ends up in their proper dimension."

"Uh I don't know how to explain Earth. There's humans and weapons, and weapons sometimes are also humans, but all awake weapons can shapeshift into at least one form so other than some differences in like documentation, people are people. Weapons and wielders have to work together to make magic? I've heard it's easier and better when you know each other more."

... I think that’s enough to work with, for now.

And I want to be named Jamie, unless that’d be weird.

What should I call you?

"Jamie's a good name! I'm Cooper."

Nice name. I assume that you’re trying to close this dunj, and that’s why we’re here?

"Yeah. It's been a problem locally, and we're too rural for any kind of fast response. So, here I am. Figured I could also get experience, this is a smaller dunj."

I, too, find that I want to acquire experience and prevent people from being terrorized. Can I try shapeshifting?

"Yeah. I think there's something I need to do, too - that'd also be good practice syncing..."

There is a dagger.

And then there isn’t. 

He’s 5’11, perhaps, lean and fairly muscled, wearing a tasteful ensemble of black and silver. 

And then he’s just going to... cautiously sit down on the floor. And be very, very still.

”Hi,” he says, carefully pronouncing the word. “This is, apparently, my body. It isn’t even slightly a dagger. I am slightly overwhelmed.”

" - Wow, yeah, that'd probably be a huge change," he says. "I, uh, have ever helped a small human learn to walk and all but I don't know how that generalizes to shapeshifting."

“I think that I have prepackaged knowledge of how to use it, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to talk, I just don’t want to make a mistake and it’s all very strange... could you turn around for a minute?”

"Sure."

He does so.

“Thank you.”

He carefully, cautiously, tentatively stands up. He shifts positions. He - carefully, cautiously, tentatively - takes a single step, and then another, and then starts pacing. He stops, abruptly, and jumps, and attempts to smile, and frown, and narrow his eyes.

He manages a cartwheel on his first try, and then a - somewhat graceless - pirouette. 

“Feel free to turn turn back now, I think that I can move in normal ways without risk. Being a body is very complicated, but I like it. How do we experiment with other magic?”

He turns back around. "Not a hundred percent sure, but I think for fighting, go through the motions, see what clicks with the both of us? I'm not sure what magic you can use in human shape, though."

“Okay. I can go back to being a dagger, then. How do I go about that?”

"Uh, my sense of it's kind of 'the same way as the other direction'? Maybe if there's more shapes with like visualization or something. I don't think we need to be touching, and maybe you can do it yourself since you're normally a dagger? But me holding your hand and helping might not hurt."

Jamie looks at him. 

He removes the barrier of intervening distance...

And he holds his hand. 

"Let's try this, then," he says, and sort of flexes his mind.

Jamie, smiling slightly, does the same -

And then Cooper is holding a dagger, again.

"It worked! Want to practice fighting next?"

Yes, I would! 

Then they can powers test!

Cooper seems to strongly favor solid, powerful blows, but can figure out pretty quickly if that's not working for them.

Jamie seems to tilt a bit towards subtlety, but he adapts fairly quickly. He wouldn’t really go for a blunt style all by his lonesome, but it seems to work pretty well for Cooper, and he has no pressing strategic objections. 

(He notices a bit of a mental hiccup over the name ‘Cooper’ - the name comes out a little dreamily. He isn’t surprised that he’s acquiring some sort of - emotional attachment - to the only person he’s ever met, and if emotional attachments really do improve magical potency, it might even be advantageous. But that would be a convenient lie, wouldn’t it, if you met someone brand new who had trouble distinguishing between true concepts and false ones, and you wanted to obtain their loyalty - he half-discards the possibility, but can’t help but keep it in the back of his mind - )

One particular attempt to stab at the air and make it hand over its valuables - clicks, in a way that others don’t. A little droplet of not-darkness squeezes itself out of the tip of the blade and drips down, dissipating a few feet above the floor.

That was anticlimactic, he comments.

Cooper's fine adjusting his style, too.

"Looks kinda cool, though," he says. "Maybe it does something when we hit a thing?"

I would be surprised if it didn’t. Any conveniently low-tier mooks nearby? 

"I cleared out the ones as I was coming in. They haven't been too bad so far. Heard they get worse near the center, though."

Do you want to go ahead and fight some more of them, and in doing so acquire knowledge about what we can do, and then practice, armed with that knowledge, or do you want to invert that order of operations and practice more now, without that knowledge, and then be better equipped for our first foray as a team?

"That's tough. I'm not sure how much practicing now helps? When we don't know what you're doing. Unless you can like feel what strikes are strongest? We could play hot-cold then."

I don’t think that’s something I’m best equipped to do in practice, rather than the field, if I can do it. Plan ‘find some monsters, stab them’ it is, then?

"Works for me."

And he'll start exploring. The weird stained glass effect remains faintly dizzying, like a hall of mirrors, and he gets lost pretty easily, but he's also never been a maze person and he's in good enough shape to just walk the whole thing if he has to.

Also it makes spotting the monsters hard.

Like that one, that suddenly stops being part of the landscape and charges him.

His inclination is 'stand his ground' but that doesn't fit as well so he dodges to the side, lets it get past, and lashes at its back.

Jamie - fits together his mental state, matches it to what it was when the droplet was produced, pushes -

The weird not-darkness that covers him spreads, rapidly, to cover the previously-a-part-of-the-landscape-monster, until it shares his distinction of being perfectly visible in every respect, and also, as is obvious to the eye, dark.

The monster shrieks and starts flailing around - completely unable to see.

It's very easy to stab after that, though Cooper has to keep moving to not get hit when it spins around.

The monster, in time, ceases moving.

I think that I like stabbing things! That was great... although being covered in monster is kind of disconcerting and I would like to stop that.

"I can imagine!" 

Luckily he brought a cleaning cloth; he can also suggest maybe ways Jamie could try using magic to clean himself off? Magical weapons usually seem like supernaturally clean.

Concentrating intently on being clean seems to work, well enough - he sort of sizzles, and the gook bubbles up and drips down as swiftly dissipating not-darkness.

How strange. Thank you! Should we go continue stabbing monsters, or should we try practicing more, with this added tactical information?

"Hm. I'm not sure also how 'practicing fake dodging blind monsters' balances off against 'me not getting tired,' I'm not sure how big this dunj is and dodging can use a lot of energy. I think on balance unless we start having trouble it might be best to conserve energy."

Right. People get tired. I might’ve gotten - overly enthusiastic, there, sorry.

"No worries. Remembering humans are squishy is hard enough when you are one."

I can only imagine. - and if we’re going into downtime, could I go back to being humanoid.

"If you want to? I'd hoped to keep moving right now, I don't want to leave the portal open unnecessarily, but definitely during breaks, and if it's important at any given time I can schedule a break then."

I think that I misinterpreted ‘conserve energy’, I was imagining ‘you’re asleep or eating, I’m standing watch’, not ‘we’re still moving’. I’m new at this, sorry. Carry on.

"It's cool! Walking doesn't take much energy, but fighting does, so it's more - use the amount of energy that accomplishes the task and not more, not 'use the minimal amount per time.'"

He does the telepathic equivalent of a nod.

Walk walk walk, oh look two monsters now - 

Cooper tries to work in some fancier footwork, but luckily they're easy to get behind like Jamie seems to like.

Benefit of fighting two: once blinded, they get in each other's way. They don't quite attack each other, but there's definitely flailing going on.

Tolerably elegant stabbing: occurs!

He experiences a degree of unadulterated glee which is mildly contextually inappropriate - not at the stabbing itself, per se, the actual experience of that is sort of sensorily gross, but the movement, the feeling of control, the sense of progress towards a greater goal, the hiss of the air against steel -

He has to lean against a wall, breathing through the adrenaline, once the two are down.

"Fighting is. Interesting," he says as his heart slows. It feels like a roller coaster sort of fun - the bottom of his stomach dropping out as some part of his brain screams and the rest roars. "I hear there's usually more in the center..."

Jamie takes a moment to clean himself off.

That was really intensely fun - I feel like I just pierced the moon and broke it into pieces - I keep getting tempted to ask questions about pacing but I think that I will avoid it, it’s not strategically important for me to know exactly what’s going to happen next - I don’t know what sort of bravery it must have taken, to enter in here without the ability to blind, to try to take on this kind of threat without magic in your hand, I’m not - 

- I really like you and I’m going to stop jabbering, now.

"I like you too!"

"Like, next in the dunj, or next after we get out of here?"

I keep getting tempted to go ‘exactly how long are you planning to rest, which direction do you think we’ll be going after this, what speed do you think we’ll be going at,’ and it’d be a waste of time to actually ask those questions - don’t bother answering them. I’m not accustomed to anything, but I’m exceptionally bad at dealing with not - regulating my own movement, I think. I’ll get over it.

"I'll be resting in short bursts only, probably less after this, I just needed a moment to adjust. You can offer opinions on direction? You might have instincts for this, I don't know, I've never been in one of these before."

He starts walking. "Right now I'm mostly following labyrinth rules - take a left every intersection so you don't get lost - though I'm tempted to start turning towards 'most monster' parts..."

Turning towards monster infested areas might be wise. If we do reach the portal stone, and break it, then we’re back on Earth, and it doesn’t matter whether we can’t retrace our steps; increasing our risk of not reaching the portal stone because we’re being too cautious about contingencies for if we don’t reach the portal stone seems - circular.

"The left turn thing's to avoid going in circles and so you don't miss stuff while going in circles, but yeah, I think I agree."

Into the thick of danger, then?

"Onwards!"

Turning towards monster gatherings, quite predictably, puts them in the thick of monsters!

This is unfairly fun.

(And Jamie is becoming substantially less paranoid about Connor’s potential motives, at this point, and becoming substantially charmed - it turns out that athletic men heroically thrusting themselves into danger out of altruistic motivations are attractive, or something. This may or may not have magical effects.)

Cooper's getting better at coordinating with him, and the blindness inducement seems to be spreading more aggressively, but it's marginal changes per. Still, by the time he's lurking out of sight of a gathering of at least ten there's a noticeable improvement over the first monster.

... Jamie is not going to distract Connor in any way while he’s sneaking around a probably-unmanageable group of opponents! It would be stupid. 

Sneak sneak sneak he is not particularly good at softening his footfalls, he always got caught by his parents when sneaking around - 

One hears him and alerts the other.

He is, however, decently able to run and therefore string them out for fighting since they're not all the same speed.

Jamie is very confident about his role here and it is ‘assist in stabbing them’. He accordingly assists in stabbing them.

(He’ll ask about which efforts have been taken to ascertain that they aren’t sapient, later, but as is he hasn’t seen any substantial evidence pointing towards that conclusion, it’s just a stray thought.)

(Cooper unfortunately would have to research that.)

After the stabbing happens, Cooper finds a monster-free little alcove, sits down, and says, "I'm going to need to rest for a bit, if you want to turn back human."

I would.

He'll provide the mental nudge that seems to help it along, then, while he swings his backpack down in front of him and pulls out a water bottle.

And Jamie will resume being humanoid.

”... can I hug you?”

"...Sure!"

Hugs! For what feels like a reasonable amount of time, even though he has no actual experience at hugging people and has to guess at what ‘a reasonable amount of time’ is based on vague concepts and innate muscle memory! 

And then he steps back.

”Thanks. Would ‘telling me about yourself’ be sufficiently restful?”

"Yeah! Um, not super sure where to start. I'm Cooper, don't really like my family name - if my old man had his way I wouldn't have any legal right to it at all, which uh sorry to get suddenly deep like that... Anyways, I live kinda semi-rurally, like I could technically walk to town but it'd be a long walk. Grew up on a small farm out in the woods, kind of getting in and out of trouble a lot as a kid. Some wild stuff. Uh, not the stupidest thing I ever did but once we were playing chicken - which is a game where whoever's bravest or stupidest wins - with a solid gate at the bottom of a steep hill. Idea was we'd ride our bikes at it, whoever braked so they stopped closest won. And then my brakes failed. I jumped clear, and mostly learned I should check my brakes before relying on them. The lesson of 'maybe risking a broken neck because there's nothing better to do isn't quite bright' took a while longer."

“I think - traits come in bundles. It takes a while for people to pick through them and find which they need to keep, and which they need to discard, and sometimes people take a while to get around to it. And I think that recklessness often comes bundled with bravery, that there’s some impulse towards doing that people need to redirect towards what needs to be done. And it’s commendable to have that impulse, instead of being the sort of person who sits at home and does nothing, even if sitting at home would be safer or wiser in common circumstance.

I’m surprised that I have opinions that complex when I’ve existed for less than a day, but I do.

- what are your hobbies, now that you’ve abandoned ‘nearly dying in order to kill time’ in favor of ‘nearly dying in order to save the innocent’?”

"Hm... I like working on things. Repairing machines, mostly - I fixed up an old ATV recently. Built a radio as a kid, still like listening in to the ham radio stuff. Keep dreaming of fixing up some antique car, but haven't gotten my hands on one. Mechanics is neat. What else... I hike, some? Probably need to do that more, this's proving I'm way out of shape."

“This is normally when I would tell you about my hobbies, I think, but I don’t have any yet. 

Do you ever go on hikes with other people? I might want to acquire the skill, when we’re done here.”

"Some! And it's a good way to get to know people, definitely."

"I’d want to accompany you in particular, then - feeling sufficiently rested?”

"Yeah. You good to keep moving, then?"

“Yes.”

He presents his hand.

He'll take it.

And so he can resume being dagger shaped!

(It transpires that daggers cannot quite hum happily to themselves, but they can certainly manage a close equivalent.)

And he'll move out.

They're able to handle the remaining groups, but the center - 

The center contains a lot of them, shifting and rustling and layered over each other - 

Well, he says.

Time for the grand finale? Unless there’s some clever way to bypass them.

"We miiiiight be able to get them to follow us to a choke point but I'm not sure if I'd put better odds on that or on 'dart for the portal stone.'"

I vote for ‘dart for the portal stone’. They don’t seem - sufficiently finite - for choke points to work.

'Yeah. I'd be worried about exhaustion there, too.' He peers out. 'You sense anything? From what I've heard they usually - stand out a lot.'

Well, does he sense anything?

There's definitely something off, rough where the surroundings are smooth, and also darker in a way. It's not quite towards the center of this space, but it's close, and currently obscured by a glass wave.

He considers if he should try verbalizing the involved location, decides against it, and instead transmits a direct sensory impression.

There.

He nods, and starts inching forwards, trying to get as much distance as possible before he's noticed.

It's made significantly harder by the fact that whoever designed this dunj didn't seem to have a concept of 'floors.' There's only usually a walkable surface, and that's mostly when room was needed for a scene. It was less of a hindrance earlier, when Cooper could take his time or even just sit down and scoot, but now it's quite the problem.

Jamie cannot help substantially in this task while he is a dagger, and asking to be anything else seems unwise, right now. He tries to think encouraging thoughts.

He makes it pretty far - 

Then steps on a monster.

He stabs that one, then takes off running. It turns out most of the glass waves can be vaulted, assuming you're the sort of person who tried and was good at most high school sports, and kept up with quite a few of them afterwards.

It’s pretty impressive.

Jamie cooperates with monster stabbing, and continues thinking encouraging thoughts, although they’re presently tilted towards ‘oh god we might actually make it’ instead of ‘we can do it, we’re going to be fine -‘.

He gets swiped when he's close, roles with it, favors his side a bit but still manages a lunge -

The portal stone is jarringly out of place, could and rough-hewn and grey, but it's not too hard to knock down, and it shatters on impact.

And both Cooper and Jamie are in the woods, close enough to a road to hear the rumble of cars.

Daggers can’t really giggle hysterically. He makes a sold attempt, anyways.

We’re not dead! We aren’t even slightly dead. We’re - fuck, we actually did it - can I go back to being humanoid so we can have celebratory hugs -

He'll help with that - 

Before sort of awkwardly collapsing.

"I'll pass on the hugs. Think my ribs are bruised."

“- sorry, didn’t realize that hit did anything substantial, I’m still unfamiliar with - sorry. Anything I can do to help?”

"It's cool. I could use someone to lean on walking back maybe? Luckily my car's near."

“Can do,” he says, helping him up and positioning himself so that he’s conveniently lean-able.

He'll lean, and direct Jamie to help him hobble over to his truck. "Thanks for the help," he says. "Here and in there."

“- ‘thank you’, he says, as if I could’ve wanted to do anything else - you’re welcome.”

"A lot of people aren't half that helpful!"

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve only ever met you, and I don't think you’re representative of the average person, unless most people are intensely attractive and heroic men willing to risk their life for the greater good.”

"Aw." He does not says 'shucks' even though he kind of wants to. He's not actually old fashioned, even if he likes dumb old films. "I guess I'm by definition not too average."

“I know this fact and appreciate it... do you want to go out for a date, some time?”

He seems a bit taken aback. Perhaps surprised. "Uh. You remember what dates are?" he asks, kind of awkwardly.

“- I only have the concept, not any associated experiences, but I think that I’m getting better at distinguishing between real concepts and fake concepts - they’re the thing where you do something with someone because you’re interested in them romantically. Why do you look like I just stabbed a cat.”

"...Uh. I'm not gay - I like girls. And most people out here kind of aren't - super forward about it?"

“I’m confused.”

"Uh. You're a guy, and I'm a guy, and guys who like guys are gay. I like girls, so I can't like guys. Gay guys don't tend to - be very forward about being romantically interested in guys out here."

“I’m about as confident in ‘people who like both genders exist’ as I am in ‘thunderstorms exist’ and ‘rabbits exist’. Is this a - gay relationships are stigmatized, gay men are held to higher standards of indirection because they’re an upper class and romantic indirection is considered high status, gay men are expected to proposition people by wearing bunny costumes and slapping them with a stuffed bear but are generally ordinary joes...?”

"Uh. They're stigmatized. Not. Everywhere? But here."

'People can like both genders' is somewhat of an uncomfortable revelation. It pokes at his brain. He doesn't like things poking his brain, his brain's inside a bone case for a reason.

“That explains why you’d think bisexuals are nonexistent, then, if they’re incentivized to pretend they only experience opposite-sex attraction... sorry for stepping on a taboo.”

"Uh. It's cool, man."

Jamie is skeptical of this assertion. 

“I assume you want to drive? - and what happens after we reach civilization, by the way, is there some sort of acculturation program for new weapons, do we stay in touch, where am I going to be staying...?”

"Yeah I'd like to drive. There's - here doesn't have any good programs, the city might though? I'd like to stay in touch - I actually have zero responsibilities and feel kinda, uh, like - you're someone who could use help, and I was kinda involved in you being a person who could maybe use help? Not sure that makes sense, but... You can stay with me, or I suppose if you're going somewhere more city-ish I can help figure out housing. This country is not very good at having free housing though. At all. My friend Blair complains about it a lot."

“I’ll stay with you.”

"Okay. I've got my own place, luckily there's a spare bedroom - it's not a super nice place, but it keeps out the rain technically."

Is this an appropriate moment to actually get in the car? Jamie thinks this an appropriate moment to actually get in the car.

“I appreciate not being technically rained on! I would either get wet, or I would rust. It’d be inconvenient.”

"I've never heard of a weapon rusting! That'd be really inconvenient, though," he says, also getting in the car and getting situated.

“I know! We’d end up giving monsters tetanus, and then they’d sue. We’d be paying liability settlements for years.”

He starts laughing so hard he has to pause in starting the car.

Jamie keeps a straight face, at first, but he can’t keep himself from snorting a bit, and then laughing just as enthusiastically.

He calms down, after a little while, but keeps on smiling like his teeth are paintings on exhibit and he has an art critic to impress.

He grins back and starts up the car. It sputters, coughs, and then groans to life, while he sighs at it fondly. "Blair keeps wanting to fix this up, maybe I should let them..."

“I wouldn’t know enough to say - what’s Blair like?”

"Uh. Drunk half the time, kind of fighty, but wicked smart. If we were a superhero team they'd be the reluctant anti-hero. Repairs old cars and motorbikes, like, really old, as a hobby. Thinks it's really important people use 'they' pronouns for them even though that's kinda dumb."

“... why would that be kind of dumb, exactly?”

"Uh." No one's ever actually asked him to clarify that, and he accordingly hasn't given his knee-jerk reaction much thought. "It's - Pronouns are kinda dumb, and it sounds like a lot of effort? And just - caring that much." He shrugs awkwardly. "But it's really important to them, so."

“I think that most problems in the world are caused by people caring too little, rather than too much. And they must be really something, in order to keep caring about something that few other people do; I admire that kind of dedication. And I’d be hurt, if I found out that someone I knew and liked had called something I really cared about ‘kind of dumb’, without having a good reason.”

"...Yeah. Yeah. Good point. Sorry."

“No problem... does this car have a radio?”

"Yeah. It's mostly talk radio, country music, and static out here, but there's sometimes other stations."

“I’ve never heard music. Could we turn on country?”

"Sure. I'll try to get you a wider exposure later."

He turns on the radio. Most of the songs are pretty similar, in lyrics and sound - he has Opinions about modern pop-country, and how a lot of it's going away from country's roots. (He does have a few songs on CD, but not as many as the radio has, they can listen to those?)

Jamie does not have opinions on modern pop-country. Jamie is busy being wordlessly delighted. They can definitely listen to those. 

He puts on slightly different music! These he knows well enough to sing along to! His voice is deep, and not classically trained but not unpleasing. He likes a pretty wide variety - slow and fast, sad and angry and hopeful, more of a focus on the troubles of life than on breakup songs...

It takes a while for him to get the hang of musical conventions, but by the time ‘Ring of Fire’ comes on he can sing along to choruses pretty confidently, even if he trails off elsewhere.

He’s a pretty competent singer, particularly considering his complete lack of experience - somewhere between baritone and tenor, depending on the song. A little - robotic, lacking in feeling, too crisp and precise for country music - but otherwise solid.

He doesn't really know enough about music to say if there's a good genre to recommend on that basis, but he's definitely willing to sing along!

It's a decently long drive - they were very in nowheresville - before Cooper pulls to a halt. "So, from here, it's either turn towards my neighborhood - up the mountain - or into town. Town's convenient for paperwork and all that and also like introducing you to other people? But my house's available if you wanna just rest for a bit before all that."

“I’m curious about your house, but I can handle paperwork and introductions.”

"Right. Probably best to get paperwork out of the way, too - though some of it we'll wanna hit tomorrow morning, like an actual ID, but we can do the informing-the-local-authorities today with probably not too much delay..."

“Yep.”

So he'll turn towards town. The administrative type stuff's only about another ten or so minutes, and it's a small, dinky rural office with a tiny parking lot composed mostly of cracked pavement, but the line inside's not bad. Cooper knows the girl behind the desk, and is able to charm his way into some help with the paperwork.

Jamie’s handwriting is a strange mix of blunt, minimalistic strokes, graceful curls and ligatures, and perfectly ordinary words and letters; he’s decently charming himself.

They’re eventually finished with paperwork.

"Your handwriting's pretty good for being new," he says. "You've got good - like hand-eye coordination, but, like, body control?"

That response and smile demand flirtation, but he prides himself on self control, doesn’t he - 

“I - pay intense attention to the way my body moves and works, is part of it, I think? Thank you.”

"No problem. You'd probably be real good at athletic stuff."

Not flirting not flirting still not flirting -

"I'll bear that in mind - you mentioned introductions, earlier?"

"More getting you to meet people in general, there's no like a gathering right now I can introduce you at - though Jonabeth should be in town, she lives here instead of out in the sticks like me."

“I’d be glad to meet people, now or later, whichever way you recommend.”

"You might like Jonabeth, I think. She knows more about music than me, at least."

"To Jonabeth's?"

"Yeah. It's a short drive, at least."

“Lovely.”

And so they can drive!

They barely have enough time for two songs on the way to Jonabeth's. She lives in a slightly run down American four-square close to the edge of town, and Cooper parks and takes the crumbling stone steps up to her porch two at a time. The porch itself creaks under their weight, and the doorbell sounds toneless and sharp when Cooper rings it.

Not even a minute later, the door's pulled aside, revealing a woman about Cooper's age, a bit disheveled.

"Hey! Cooper! And - new friend?"

“I hope so! I’m a weapon: I spontaneously awakened while he was assaulting a dungeon, there was stabbing, that dungeon is no longer extant, and now I’m staying with him. You have excellent taste in friends, Cooper’s great.”

"He is! That sounds exciting. Cooper hadn't told me he was going after a dunj - seriously, boy needs to call sometime - come on, let me get you a drink. Bet you haven't had anything yet..."

“Thanks. I think that I’d find alcohol disconcerting, have anything virgin?”

"Other than Cooper? Got some sodas, some sweet tea, some lemonade. Ginger ale, coke, sprite..."

“Coke.”

"Sprite, though I'll also take fewer terrible puns."

"I make the best puns. But soda it is."

Jamie follows her inside the house, if she seems follow-able.

“I’m looking forward to my first culinary experience! If it’s as good as music I’ll pass out from the excess.”

"You poor thing, did Cooper subject you to his music tastes? I'm no five star chef, but I know my way around my instruments."

“Do feel free to demonstrate.”

"I'll get everyone settled first, then - hm, living room's not got good reverb but neighbors keep complaining about noise if I go in backyard..."

‘I wonder why your neighbors might complain about you’, he does not say.

“It isn’t urgent. How did you come to know Cooper?”

"Known each other since forever. Went to school together; small town like this, you get to know pretty much every kid your age. Got in trouble at Sunday school together, too, though that was forever ago. Preacher was screaming something 'bout me being a devil child last I saw him."

“I’d believe it.”

"Might've had something to do with the giant pentagram in the yard."

“Oh?”

"I'm a little shit, what can I say, tried to summon a bird demon. Didn't work. I thought for sure it would, given how often preach was warning about the dangers of witchcraft."

“You’re lucky. The last time I tried summoning a bird demon, it worked, and then all it did was peck at the ground and ask for crackers. It was very disappointing.”

"What've you two been getting up to that you've had time for demon summoning?"

“Oh, the usual. Robbing banks. Going to hookup bars. Racing unicorns. Sacrificing tennis balls to elder gods.”

"You're a horrible liar."

“I’m excellent at lying badly. It’s an important skill. You should try honing it.”

"I usually prefer lying believably!"

“Noted.”

"He's terrible at that, too. Maybe you'll be a good influence."

“No.”

"Think you're gonna be a terrible influence instead?"

“Well, I am the one who incited all of the fictitious robbery and animal sacrifice.”

"I don't know, seems pretty good to me."

“You have interesting taste.”

"Now you sound like Cooper."

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

They continue bantering, for a while, and they drink, and Jonabeth demonstrates substantial musically competence, and they banter some more -

And then they leave, and drive, and listen and sing and smile, and arrive at Cooper’s place.

It's a bit old, one small story with blue painted wood siding that needs a new coat of paint and a metal roof. But despite its age it's clearly been cared for - the paint's the only thing in need of updating. It looks like work's been done recently on the wrap around porch, and there's a reclaimed porch swing with newish cushions. The trees have been cut back a good bit from the house, leaving plenty of sunshine, and there's a large stack of wood off to one side. A large shed can be seen peaking out from behind the house, and shortly past that the mountain falls away to sweeping views of the valley below.

"Home sweet home," Cooper says. "It's just me here now. Which's pretty good, since it's only a two bedroom."

Time to not make the first innuendo that comes to mind and make everything incredibly awkward.

"I like the landscaping.”

"That's more Mother Nature than me, unfortunately. I'm not that much of a green thumb."

"Mother Nature?"

"Kind of - metaphor? For, like, stuff nature just does on its own. Guess maybe someone somewhen thought nature might be a goddess?"

“I see - do you have a television, assuming that those are a real thing?”

"I'd hope they're real, since I do have one. And it even works."