Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"So what’s this about?" he asked her.

"I’m worried," she said. She sounded worried, too.

Zorian waited for a few seconds for a clarification of what exactly she was worried about, but Taiven seemed to have trouble finding the words. She paced around the training hall like a caged tiger, scowling and shaking her head.

"No, seriously, what is this about?" Zorian asked.

She still didn’t say anything.

"Is it time loop related?" he added after a bit of thought.

"Of course it’s time loop related!" she burst out at him. She looked like she was going to snap at him but quickly managed to reign herself in. She shook her head sadly. "And, in a way, it isn’t. I don’t even know why I called you here. It’s stupid. I should just–"

"Don’t even dare try to send me away now," Zorian warned her.

"I won’t, I won’t," she assured him. "I’m just… I just realized I probably lost you as a friend."

Zorian gave her an incredulous look.

"And why would you think that ?" Zorian asked her curiously.

"Because this time loop has changed you," she told him. "You already feel like a stranger to me. You’re so hard to read these days, and so very capable. Everything I can do, you can do better. And that’s only going to get worse as you spend time in here. By the time you get out, why would you need me anymore? By the time this is all resolved, I will probably no longer have a friend."

"Eh, you’re being overdramatic," Zorian told her. He knew he was probably sounding a little dismissive, but he honestly didn’t know what else to tell her. "I know you don’t remember this, but I spend a lot of time interacting with you in various restarts. There is zero chance that I’m just going to forget you."

"Well yes, I’m sure that you won’t just forget me ," she huffed. "But any concern you have for me will be of the… well, patronizing kind. You’ll be so above me it isn’t even funny. We won’t be equals, you know? It’ll be you, a secret archmage, keeping an eye on his old friend for old-time’s sake. It’s very depressing."

"Ah," said Zorian slowly.

There was a lot of truth in what she was saying. There was really no way their friendship would be the same as it had been before the time loop. However, that was not necessarily a bad thing. His past self was… somewhat bitter with Taiven. He had not considered them to be close friends, something that Taiven seemed rather oblivious to. Much like she was oblivious to his past crush on her, really.

So yes, their relationship would never be the same. But was that a bad thing? While Taiven might lament the loss of their earlier friendship, Zorian couldn’t help but wonder whether there would have even been a friendship if he hadn’t got stuck in this time loop. Would he have eventually overcome the hurt of having his love confession laughed at and reestablished close bonds with her? Probably. But it would have taken quite some time and he wasn’t sure Taiven would have stuck around him for long enough to see that happen.

"Why did you ever decide to become friends with me, anyway?" Zorian asked her curiously. "This will sound a little self-deprecating, but I don’t think I was that good of a friend."

"Ha ha!" she laughed, her mood brightening a little. "Well, it’s good that you’re so honest. That’s the one change I like about the new you."

She picked up a practice doll from a nearby bench and started making minute corrections to it. Zorian couldn’t see what they were meant to do, so he assumed she was just stalling for time and giving herself something to do.

"Since you were willing to be a little self-deprecating, I will follow your example," Taiven eventually said. "I wasn’t a very good friend either. Either to you or to anyone else. I’m too blunt and impulsive and I can’t judge the situation and people very well. Most people actually find me pretty insulting and aggravating."

Zorian was going to say something to cheer her up, but then he remembered that her nickname for him was Roach . He still remembered the argument he’d had with her when she had tried to convince him that being compared to cockroaches was a compliment because they were amazing animals, famed for their adaptability and resilience. Eventually he caved in and (reluctantly) let her call him that, but he could see why some people would be deathly insulted if she were to pull that kind of stunt on them.

"I actually have very few friends aside from you," she continued. "Aside from you, only my two teammates seem to like me. But Urik and Oran… they’re old friends. I’ll never be anything other than the third wheel if I hang out around them."

"But I didn’t have any other friends," Zorian surmised.

"Yeah," Taiven told him. "You annoyed me, I annoyed you, but we got along with each other anyway. Maybe you weren’t a good friend, but I wasn’t much better, so it didn’t matter. But now you’re getting better, and I… I can’t."

She hugged the practice doll like a little girl trying to comfort herself with a favorite toy. It was a somewhat weird sight, since the practice doll was the size of an adult human and creepily featureless.

Zorian stared at her, wondering how to handle this. He didn’t see how he could convince Taiven that the nature of their friendship wouldn’t change once he got out of the time loop. It would be an obvious lie. Of course, Zorian did not consider this change to be a bad thing, but to explain why he felt that way he would have to…

…eh, why not. If he was really honest with himself, he always had wanted to do this. He just hadn’t had the courage to go through with it.

"I had a crush on you once," he told her.

"Eh!?" she exclaimed, jerking in surprise and dropping the practice doll. It clattered to the floor, leaving deafening silence in its wake. For a moment, anyway. "What do you mean, you had a crush on me!? When!? How!?"

"Do you remember that time I asked you out on a date?" he asked her.

"What? Are we… are we talking about that time…" she fumbled. Zorian nodded anyway. He had only ever asked her to a date once in the time they knew each other, so she couldn’t be thinking of anything else. "But, uh, isn’t that when I… laughed at you?"

Zorian gave her a long-suffering look.

"Yes," he confirmed. "Yes, it is. It wasn’t a joke, Taiven. I was dead serious about it."

"Ah ha ha…" she laughed nervously. "Wow, that’s… really something."

She buried her face into her hands for a moment.

"Gods above, I’m so stupid sometimes," she mumbled into her hands.

Then she punched him in the shoulder.

"Hey!" he protested in mild outrage. He’d normally be more bothered about the sudden physical violence, but eh. It was Taiven. He expected that sort of thing from her. "What the hell!?"

"And you’re stupid too!" she told him. "Why the hell would you just accept me laughing at you like that if you were being serious!?"

"Well what the hell was I supposed to do!?" Zorian protested.

"Tell me I was wrong! Ask me out again! Get angry before storming off!" Taiven shouted. "Anything! Not just pretend everything was fine and retreat with a tail between your legs like a wounded puppy. I mean… I kept joking about that long afterwards and you still didn’t say anything. At least if I knew I wouldn’t have been rubbing salt into your wounds like that!"

"It doesn’t matter," Zorian grunted. "In the end I still got an answer to my question. You clearly weren’t interested in me that way. You found the very idea laughable, even."

"Oh come on!" she whined. "That’s not fair. I wasn’t laughing because the idea of me dating you was so ridiculous. I was laughing because I gave you love advice urging you to ask people out and you followed it by immediately asking me out. It just… seemed to me like you were making a joke. In retrospect, I was being stupid, but… You should have said something, damn it!"