Taylor makes a move. It's a good move all things considered, but not good enough.

"And mate."

And so it is.

"Good game."

"Likewise, thanks. Let's do something Aisha can play now, this felt kind of awkward." She starts gathering up the pieces.

Aisha has no suggestions.

"She enjoyed watching."

Probably.

She enjoyed passively existing while being noticeable without being overwhelmed by sudden attention.

Regent would have made a crass joke about how she enjoys watching.

"Even so." Do they have Pictionary?

They check but can't find it.

"I can send someone to grab it?" Tattletale offers.

"Nah, you can do a similar thing with just pencils and paper, you write a sentence, next person has to draw it, they pass it on to someone who has to render it as a sentence, so on and so forth till all the papers have gone around."

"Aw, I wanted to send my henchmen to go and get it from the shop. I have an 'arrangement' with the nearest game store and everything."

"How tragic that I have burst your bubble." She locates paper and starts passing it out.

They successfully play pictionary, with Aisha even participating for the first two rounds. Eventually people get tired and the event ends for the night.

That's good because the next day she's tagging along with her mom to a college experimental theater production. They travel separately, though, since Lorica likes her motorcycle so much.

Aisha arrives halfway through and sits in the aisle nearby.

...weird? Probably it is not cutting importantly into profit margins for Strangers to... watch experimental theater?

Actually she starts reading a manga pretty quickly - it's not very interesting theater.

Valid, though it's a little better if you saw the first half.

Aisha is still there when it's over, and follows Lorica out.

She splits up with her mom in the parking lot, walks between a couple SUVs, and looks at Aisha. "What gives?"

Aisha startles - she knew that Lorica could notice her in the abstract but it's still surprising.

"Want to kill my dead boyfriend's dad?"

"I can't say that I do, no."

"You sure? He deserves it."

"Look, Jack Slash was a one-off, I don't really expect to have quite that good a means-motive-opportunity confluence again."